an inquisitive interlude

Yesterday, my e-friend Dwight asked a question on his blog about magical realism, which I (like any other overeducated young man with real work to avoid) was happy to define at length in his comments section. I enjoyed doing this. It gave me a reason to thumb through a few books I hadn't looked through in a while, and it was nice to be able to dust off some of the information in my brain and give it a good detailing.

Anyway, the experience made me think that this is something I might like to do here on this blog. After all, there are tons of names for genres and movements and historical periods and the like in the world of literature, and lots of people are too overwhelmed or embarrassed to ask what a lot of them mean. What's postmodernism? What is just plain modernism? Or how about postcolonialism? Why is this book full of rocket ships and lasers called science fiction, but this other book full of rocket ships and lasers is called speculative fiction? Who were the Victorian authors, and why should I care? For that matter, who the were the Romantics, or the Transcendentalists, or the Augustans? And just what the hell was that Vorticist Manifesto thing all about? You get the point.

So, here's my question for all of you: is this something that any of you would actually like me to do? And if so, what literary subjects are you most interested in seeing me cover?

nature's first green is gold

At some point, everyone who seeks out puzzles and riddles and the like has seen this challenge in one form or another:

Using six toothpicks of equal length, make four triangles whose sides are all exactly one toothpick long. You only have the six toothpicks to work with, and you may not break, burn or otherwise alter the toothpicks.

If you've never tried this one for yourself, go ahead and do so. You don't need to use toothpicks, either--matches, pens, straws, any small straight objects of equal length will do. It's okay, I'll wait while you play with your sticks for a few minutes.

...

Give up yet?

Chances are, your first attempt probably looked a bit like this:


You managed one triangle, had the clever idea to double up your sides for the second...and ended up with one toothpick in reserve and two more triangles to complete. If the side length requirement weren't in place, you could get away with something like this:


But that isn't going to cut it, now is it? This is the point at which most people give up and find some other way to occupy their time. For those who keep working at it, who continue to fiddle with those sticks in the back of their mind while they're sitting in meetings or vacuuming the house, sooner or later they all have the same epiphany: Don't build out, build up.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the tetrahedron:


Count 'em for yourself--four identical triangles, six border lines of equal length. Like most puzzles of this sort, once you know the solution it seems glaringly obvious. But when you're thinking solely in two dimensions, no matter how hard you try an answer that relies on the addition of a third dimension is never going to occur to you.

In the same way that every one of us picked up those toothpicks and tried to make them do what we needed on a 2-D plane, we all tend to approach writing within the same sorts of unconsciously set mental confines. No matter whether our work is creative or technical, realist or surreal, traditional or experimental, it is written out on page after page, which the reader is expected to follow starting at the front cover and then working their linear way through each sentence and paragraph and chapter in sequence until they arrive at the back cover. In this regard, James Joyce and Stephen King and the person who wrote the owner's manual for your television are all exactly alike.

But is this the only way to go about things?

No, not at all. Allow me to introduce you to two creative sorts who discovered ways to write in three dimensions.

Few people have ever heard of B.S. Johnson, who unfortunately took his own life in 1973 at the age of forty, but there are few better places to begin a discussion of strucural innovators. For example, his second novel, Albert Angelo, aside from containing a wildly divergent mixture of narrative styles, is also notable for the holes that are cut in its pages at certain strategic locations, allowing the reader a glimpse of specifically chosen events that have yet to occur in the story.

The novel Johnson is best known for is The Unfortunates, which was published not as a bound book, but as a set of twenty-seven packets of pages enclosed in a box. In fact, The Unfortunates is what you see held in the author's hand in the above photo. One packet is clearly marked to be read first and another packet is clearly marked to be read last, but the other twenty-five sections that comprise the middle of this fascinatingly odd book can be read in whatever order the reader chooses.

Mark Z. Danielewski (shown here next to his sister Anne, who records albums under the name Poe) has written only two books to date, but even so has managed to avoid the obscurity in which Johnson spent his entire career, in large part thanks to the runaway success of his first novel House of Leaves.

And while House of Leaves (or, more properly, House of Leaves) is interestingly experimental in the ways in which it creates a labyrinth out of its footnotes and mimics the content and feel of damaged, incomplete manuscripts in places, for the purposes of this discussion it is his second novel Only Revolutions I would like to focus on.

The name of the game in Only Revolutions is circularity, both in content and in structure. For starters, the book is meant to be read from both sides--you pick up the book, read eight pages in one direction, jam in a bookmark, then flip the book over and read eight pages in the opposite direction. Flip, flip, flip, forcing the reader to constantly turn the book over and over in a circle. The two narratives, each from the point of view of one of the main characters Sam or Hailey, both tell roughly the same story, but with great variance in details (you can read the first page of both narratives here and here). In addition...

1) Both narratives are exactly 360 pages long, meaning that both narratives contain a single page for each degree in a circle.

2) Each half page contains exactly ninety words (excluding the historical notes printed on the book's inner margins), so each complete physical page contains 180 words--and two facing pages present the reader with a full 360 words.

3) Pieces of jewelry referred to as "leftwrist twists" throughout the book are mirrored between page halves. For example, if a "leftwrist twist of ruby" is mentioned in Sam's narrative, if you read Hailey's narrative on that same pysical page you would be sure to find a leftwrist twist made of the same material.

4. The character of the Creep appears on the exact same range of pages in both narratives.

5. The animals named in Sam's narrative and the plants named in Hailey's tend to appear in linked sets. For example, in page 50 of Hailey's narrative, the plants "Bee Balm" and "Woodland Ferns" are seen alive and well, and in the bottom half of the page (Sam's page 311) two animals, "Bullfrogs" and "Northern Racers," are found dead. Flip over to page 50 of Sam's narrative, and you'll find that "Bullfrogs" and "Northern Racers" are seen living and breathing, while on the bottom half of the page (Hailey's 311) "Bee Balm" and "Brackern Ferns" are now dead.

There are more, of course, but that should be enough to give you a general impression. Danielewski isn't afraid to deviate from his own pattern for effect, but by and large he sticks to the tightly wound, circular connective design he has woven throughout the entire text.

Of course, this isn't to say that every writer can or even should try to write in more directions than the stodgily linear one they've been using since grade school, but sometimes it's enough to know that it can be done--and more importantly, that it has been done, and done successfully. After all, once you know to look for the tetrahedron, it's hard to limit your mind to just two dimensions.

writing lessons from non-written sources

When I'm looking to get a particular tone or feeling fixed in my head before sitting down to write, I like to spend some time thumbing through a few novels that are written in a tone similar to what I'm doing. I'm sure most authors do this to a certain extent. But as I got ready to write yesterday evening, instead of heading to my bookshelves I found myself listening to this song, over and over again:



This is "The Garden" by Einsturzende Neubauten, a little group from Germany that has been quietly turning out fascinating, experimental, deceptively simple music for the better part of three decades and counting. At first, I wasn't sure what possessed me to put this particular track on repeat, but partway through about the third repetition I started really paying attention to not just the mood of the music, but the spareness of its arrangement, the daringness of the musicians to let the song build at its own pace instead of rushing it. The slow, gradual buildup was what made the crescendo evocative and memorable, not the crescendo itself.

When I write, I have a bad habit of rushing full-speed through my rising actions so that I can get my climaxes down on paper, but last night I found it much easier to slow down and depict the smaller things along the way, the little details that make characters and stories memorable and engaging. The song I listened to isn't in any danger of being mistaken for a style guide or writing reference book, and yet it taught me a lesson that had a direct, immediate effect on the quality of my writing.

So, my question to you is, are there any sources that you have used to improve your writing that can't be found on a bookshelf? A song, a walk in the park, a conversation with a friend, a pet's antics? Are these writing lessons from non-written sources a common occurrence in your life, or are they more rare and sporadic than that?

for tomorrow, in early remembrance

Since tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I thought it was a good idea to take a moment to reflect on the man and his work. More specifically, his written work. When most people think of King, they remember the ecstatic, uplifting speeches, the nonviolent protests, the assassination. However, what many people don't know is that a great deal of the success Martin Luther King and his followers had in reaching out to people outside the confines of the deep south and earning their support and respect can be attributed to a single letter he wrote.

Allow me to set the stage for you: it is April of 1963, and Martin Luther King is serving a jail sentence in Birmingham, Alabama for participating in peaceful demonstrations there. On April 12th, an open letter written by eight white clergymen from Birmingham (most of them bishops) was released and, well, take a gander for yourselves:

A Call for Unity

We the undersigned clergymen are among those who, in January, issued "an appeal for law and order and common sense," in dealing with racial problems in Alabama. We expressed understanding that honest convictions in racial matters could properly be pursued in the courts, but urged that decisions of those courts should in the meantime be peacefully obeyed.

Since that time there had been some evidence of increased forbearance and a willingness to face facts. Responsible citizens have undertaken to work on various problems which cause racial friction and unrest. In Birmingham, recent public events have given indication that we all have opportunity for a new constructive and realistic approach to racial problems.

However, we are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.

We agree rather with certain local Negro leadership which has called for honest and open negotiation of racial issues in our area. And we believe this kind of facing of issues can best be accomplished by citizens of our own metropolitan area, white and Negro, meeting with their knowledge and experience of the local situation. All of us need to face that responsibility and find proper channels for its accomplishment.

Just as we formerly pointed out that "hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions," we also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not believe that these days of new hope are days when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham.

We commend the community as a whole, and the local news media and law enforcement officials in particular, on the calm manner in which these demonstrations have been handled. We urge the public to continue to show restraint should the demonstrations continue, and the law enforcement officials to remain calm and continue to protect our city from violence.

We further strongly urge our own Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better Birmingham. When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets. We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense.

Or, if you'd prefer a summarized version highlighting the key points of the above,

Dear Negroes,

Please stop being so damned uppity.

XOXO,
Whitey

The chief member of the "outsiders" mentioned in the letter was, of course, Martin Luther King--and really, the letter as a whole is a rather unsubtle attack on King and his advocacy of civil disobedience. In response, King drafted a letter of his own on scraps of paper smuggled in to his cell by black trustees who worked for the jail. Finished on April 12th and published for the first time in mid-June of that same year, King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was quickly picked up and reprinted in hundreds of newspapers by national and international media outlets, and suddenly the eyes (and consciences) of the American public and the rest of the world were focused on Dr. King and the civil rights movement.

Support began to pour in from all across the country in the form of monetary donations, volunteers, and shows of solidarity by powerful organizations like the National Council of Churches who up until then had ignored the problem of racial discrimination entirely. This reaction to the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was instrumental in the later success of the March on Washington in August of 1963 where Dr. King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech, and helped to inspire the creation of the Civil Rights Act championed by President John F. Kennedy which was finally passed by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2nd, 1964.

Since King's letter is a long one, I've decided not to paste the whole text of it into this post. Instead, I will link to the full text of the letter here for those of you who are interested in reading it, and in closing I will just quote the section of the letter that hits me the hardest--and still does, every year when I reread it on Martin Luther King Jr. Day:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another mans freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro the wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating that absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all it ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light injustice must be exposed with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion, before it can be cured.

a declaration of intent

Have you ever slowly come to an important realization that something in your life had to change, then felt the need to announce it as publicly as possible so as not to wimp out and conveniently forget it about it later? Perhaps not, but this is one of those times for me.

If you had asked me two or three years ago what I was planning on doing with my life, I would have told you with 100% certainty that I was going to earn a PhD in English and teach at the university level, no doubt about it. I've repeated this statement many times between then and now, but particularly in the last few months it's begun to ring more and more hollow with each subsequent iteration.

Here's the thing: I love research. I love literature. I love tackling big subjects and learning everything there is to know about them. But the more I've emphasized the academic urge in me, the more I've come to realize that I've already accomplished everything I wanted to do in that vein. I've developed a broad reading knowledge of literature, become amply competent in researching subjects of all shapes and sizes, and tightened my writing skills considerably. At this point, I am perfectly capable of setting up my own learning goals and reading lists and seeing them through to completion without having a professor nearby to hold my hand and read the books to me. Besides, I already have degrees--another slip of paper to put in a pretty frame doesn't pique my interest all that much.

At the same time, I've also come to realize how important being a writer is to me. I've read so many books by so many different authors that they've reached critical mass in my head--I don't just want to read literature, I want to contribute to it. I've heard what hundreds of people across dozens of centuries have had to say, and now it's time for me to add my voice to the mix.

To that end, I have a novel in the works, I have short stories in various stages of completion, and I am greedily feasting on every scrap of information I can find about freelance writing. I'll stick with my studies for now (student loans are paying the bills, after all), but the lion's share of my energies will be going into pursuing a career as a writer. This is a done deal. (On a side note, this also means that I will be posting on this blog on a more regular basis. Whether or not that's a positive thing I leave up to your judgement.)

And you know what? Since I made this decision, I feel more excited and energized than I've felt about anything in a very long time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some scribbling to do.

koans you can't help but be enlightened by

A student said to the chief monk, "Help me to pacify my mind!"
The chief monk said, "Bring your mind over here and I will pacify it."
The student said, "But I don't know where my mind is!"
The monk replied, "Then I have already pacified it."
The student said, "Explain to me in detail what you have just done."
The chief monk was silent.
The student said, "Well?"
The monk hung his head, saying, "I tried to confuse you so that you would go away."

More here.

hooray for poetv

For your viewing pleasure, here is David Lynch's take on the iPhone's ability to play movies (there's a little swearing, so you may not want to watch this at work):

Watching this makes me happy. Thank you, poeTV!