rss

Category: Writing

3
Fans, Freedom, and Frustration
By Mark Tiedemann on November 03rd, 2009

Fans, Freedom, and Frustration

Over on her blog, Kelley Eskridge has a video of a “Bono Moment” in which you see two distinct types of fans interacting with U2’s lead singer. Check it out and come back here.

Okay, the guy in the t-shirt obviously is carrying on a conversation. he may be being a fan, but he hasn’t lost his mind. The female is being…a groupie, I guess. Though the groupies I’ve met in my time have been a bit more specific about what they wanted and had a better plan on how to get it. In any event, the questions Kelley raises are interesting and relate on so many levels to so many different things. The fan reaction—mindless adulation bordering on deification—looks to me, has always looked to me, like exactly the same kind of nonsense people put into religion. Mindless, utterly uncritical adoration of an image and the set of emotions with which that image is connected in the mind of the adulant. You can see the same thing in politics. To a lesser degree with less public personalities—writers, painters, photographers (I never knew anyone who elevated a photographer to the level of sex god, but I have known people who got off on sleeping with painters, and of course there’s a kind of Nabokovian/Bellow/DeLillo-esque subculture of writer groupies…) and other creative types—but actors and musicians seem to get all the dedicated obsessives.

I’ve never had this happen to me. I’m not sure if I’m grateful or resentful—having somebody want to associate themselves with you in a mindless swoon because your work has made them, I don’t know, climax maybe is on a certain level appealing. But it’s appealing the same way porn is—something most people, if they’re at all sane and grounded, kind of grow out of and get over. I know I would not find it very attractive now. When I was twenty-five? You betcha. Bring ‘em on.

But if I’d had that then I think I’m fairly sure I would have wearied of it very quickly. I long ago realized that sex, to me, involved the other person—emphasis on Person—and the best sex I ever had included the good conversations before and, especially, after. (There is a point, of course, where you realize that sex is a conversation, of a very particular sort, and takes on a whole new dimension, which one-night-stands, no matter how good they might be, just can’t provide.)

But the real problem with all this is that art is more than just any one thing and the artist is not the art. The two are inextricably linked. Here is a video discussing the question of artist-in-relation-to-muse which I find illuminating. The notion that the talent “arrives” and you act as conduit through which creativity happens is not, as the speaker suggests, a new one, and it’s not one I’m particularly in sympathy with—it all happens in my brain, it’s definitely mine—but I certainly find her analysis of the psychology of following through intriguing and true. Once the muse is finished with you on a given project, you do not continue to exist as though in the grip of the work. There is a person there that pre-figures the work and who will be there after it’s done that has all the needs and wants and sensibilities of a normal human being. To be treated as some kind of transcendence generating machine by people is in some ways disenfranchising. For a writer, if the well from which inspiration and material are drawn is the honesty of human interaction, then the gushing idiot fan robs the writer, for a few minutes at least, of exactly that.

But it also sets the artist up to become a prisoner. A prisoner of other people’s expectations. Those expectations always play a part in anyone’s life, but certain aspects—the most artificial ones—get exaggerated in the instance of fan adoration.

Watch Bono shift from one stance to another when he finally acknowledges the female. No, he doesn’t stop being Bono, but it’s almost as if he says “Oh, it’s time to do this sort of thing now” as he first recognizes her presence and then automatically poses for the camera, with this not-quite-disingenuous smirk. Because he also recognizes that, however silly this person is being, what she’s feeling right then is her’s and to claim it is artificial is wrong. Maybe an artificial set of expectations led her to this point, but now that she’s In The Moment, the emotions are real. If he’d ignored her or told her something snarky in an attempt to snap her out of it, all that would have resulted would have been an ugly moment, a bit of cruelty, and a lot of confusion on the fan’s part.

[more . . . ]

Addictions • American Culture • Art • Communication • Community • Consumerism • Culture • Education • Featured • Meaning of Life • Media • Politics • Psychology Cognition • Religion • Science • Writing • music
Full Story
0
By Tim Hogan on October 22nd, 2009

When We Were Ten

My sister Pat was the first, followed by her Irish Twin Eileen. Irish Twins are when you have two kids in one calendar year. Patricia Marie Hogan was born January 1, 1949 and Eileen Ann Hogan was born November 23, 1949. Dan (Daniel n/m/n) Hogan was born in 1952, and Susan Ann Hogan two years after that. Timothy Eves Hogan was born December 6, 1955.

I began growing up at the same time America began growing up. The very week of my birth, in Alabama, Ms. Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. I believe this action set a pattern for my life. If I think I am right, you will not move me. You may remove me but, unless you persuade me otherwise, you are stuck with me as I am. Some say this contributed to my being married for the first time at age 41 but, I say it took me that long to find the right woman.

My sister Mary Lee Hogan was born the next year, and for one day Susan, I and Mary Lee are three in a row for our ages. My brother Thomas Joseph Hogan was born in the 60’s and followed by a sister Julie Ann Hogan, another brother Terrence Gerard Hogan, and finally our baby sister Tracy Ann Hogan. All told, there were 10 siblings, my mom and dad and one or two dogs and anywhere from two to 14 cats in our house at any given time.

We grew up worshiping the Holy Trinity; being Irish, Catholic and Democrats. We lived in an area of St. Louis County known as Richmond Heights, Missouri which according to legend was named such by a young US Army Lieutenant Robert E. Lee because the area reminded him of Richmond, Virginia. I don’t know about that but, the area was home to our family. Our Parish, St. Luke the Evangelist, took in parts of Richmond Heights, Maplewood, Clayton and parts of an area in the City of St. Louis known as Dogtown. Our family was no where near the largest in the Parish as there were many families with 11 or more kids, topped by the Powers family with 15.

Community • Friendships/relationships • Meaning of Life • Saint Louis • Writing
Full Story
8
By Erich Vieth on September 27th, 2009

On the need to pay for content

There has been a lot of talk lately about coming up withe new models of providing information, such that the consumers will “continue” to pay for content. Not so fast, says Paul Graham:

Publishers of all types, from news to music, are unhappy that consumers won’t pay for content anymore. At least, that’s how they see it. In fact consumers never really were paying for content, and publishers weren’t really selling it either. If the content was what they were selling, why has the price of books or music or movies always depended mostly on the format? Why didn’t better content cost more? . . . Economically, the print media are in the business of marking up paper.

But don’t people pay for information? Only certain kinds of information:

People will pay for information they think they can make money from. That’s why they paid for those stock tip newsletters, and why companies pay now for Bloomberg terminals and Economist Intelligence Unit reports. But will people pay for information otherwise? History offers little encouragement.

[via Daily Dish]

Communication • Internet • Writing • advertising
Full Story
3
John Adams and Modern Perceptions
By Mark Tiedemann on August 30th, 2009

John Adams and Modern Perceptions

We just watched the last episode of John Adams. I got the DVD from the library and we went through it in one week, all seven installments. I have to admit, the last episode brought tears. The partnership between John and Abigail was well-portrayed and deeply moving. The older I get, the more I find the strongest story resonance with depictions of deep, deep friendships, especially those that exist between lovers, spouses, life partners. I cannot imagine losing Donna, who has become exactly that for me, in spite of the fact that I have friends of longer acquaintance, good friends, too.

The casting was incredible, the make-up superb, the writing first class.

What struck me most about this as well was the marvelously-nuanced dramatization of the fundamental differences in political philosophy between Adams and Jefferson. I can’t help but think that when Adams declared that “the true history of our revolution is lost” he must have been thinking of the initial partnership and later dissolution of like-mindedness between himself and Thomas Jefferson, whom Joseph Ellis depicts an an American Sphinx.

Adams is here portrayed as an idealist who cannot separate his philosophy from his pragmatism. In the first dozen years of the new republic, there was enormous public sentiment for France and when that country descended into the frenzy of its own revolution gone mad, that sentiment demanded that we support the revolutionaries. The irony that France supported us when it was still a monarchy and now those very people that had backed us (granted, as a move in their own war with England) were the victims of the mob ascendant was lost on most people, and apparently even Jefferson, who wanted us to embroil ourselves immediately and deeply in support of the revolutionaries. Washington—how lucky they were to have him—refused. He was a militaryman by training and he understood how to assess the chances of success and how to go about surviving a conflict in which you are outmatched. He had seen more than his share of defeat in a long career and knew well that ideology needed a strong hand to keep it in check, lest it carry you over the precipice. He refused to side with France, believing that neutrality was the only way for the United States to survive. Adams shared that belief.

American Culture • Culture • Education • Featured • Films • History • Noteworthy • Politics • Recommended Reading/Films/Sites • Writing • hypocrisy • ignorance
Full Story
0
The Hierarchy of Disagreement
By Dan Klarmann on August 17th, 2009

The Hierarchy of Disagreement

I found this illustration of how to order your arguments at the Starts With A Bang blog. This blog usually leads one to a first source. However, I had to do some digging to find the original creator of this image. This image is all over the web, but I think the first source is here, from the Create Debate blog in April 2008.

This image (click on it to enlarge) was created to illustrate an earlier point by Paul Graham, whose text-only posts I’ve been (occasionally) reading for years.

The premise is to always lead with your top level reasonable arguments, and never resort to the bottom layers. As Ethan Siegel (SWAB) put it,

It’s sometimes tough to decipher what the central point of someone else’s argument is, because most people don’t argue clearly and logically. But if you can identify it, that’s when you win. When someone else mucks around at the bottom of the pyramid, don’t sink to their level; stay up high. Those top two levels are really the only way to ever change someone’s mind, or to sway other intelligent, thinking people to your side.

This is an attitude that would serve us well on this site.

Communication • Education • Featured • Web Site • Writing • scientific method
Full Story
7
By Erika Price on July 27th, 2009

Verbing the net noun.

The word “texting” sounds harsh and garbled when it comes out of a speaker’s mouth. A sentence where “text” is used as a verb, such as , “I texted him yesterday but he didn’t text me back,” instantly summons an image of a slack-jawed, gum-popping teenage girl- all ignorance and frivolity. The words just sound stupid.

Don’t blame me- some of us Gen-Yers fought off the term “texting” the same way we did bad fads like Crocs and Ugg boots. Even deep into the aughts, years after “texting”, we still said “sending a text message” instead.

“Texting” prevailed however, for the same reason that Crocs and Uggs became ubiquitous: aesthetics aside, it was damn comfy and easy. “Texting” might make for an ugly-sounding word, but it came out more smoothly and quickly than the correct “sending a text message”.

American Culture • Communication • Cultural Evolution • Culture • Internet • Language • Technology • Whimsy • Writing • ignorance
Full Story
3
To Read Or Not To Read, And Yet to Write—’Tis A Conundrum Devoutly To Be Solved
By Mark Tiedemann on July 24th, 2009

To Read Or Not To Read, And Yet to Write—’Tis A Conundrum Devoutly To Be Solved

I’ve heard of this phenomenon, but never before encountered it directly. Excuse me, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the utter vapidity of this…

I have a MySpace page. Admittedly, I pay less attention to it these days in lieu of my Facebook page (all these Pages…for such a functional Luddite, it amazes me I navigate these strange seas), but I do check it at least once a week. I post a short blog there. And I collect Friend Requests.

I received such a request the other day from someone whose name I will not use. Unless it’s from someone or something I recognize, I go to the requester’s page to check them out. Saves on a small amount of embarrassment. This person had a legit page. Aspiring writer. Claimed to be working on several short stories and a novel. Great. I’m all about supporting other writers. Sometimes we’re all we’ve got. But I scrolled down to the section where he lists his interests and find under BOOKS this:

I actually don’t read to much but I do like a few. Twilight, Harry Potter, Impulse, Dead on Town Line, etc.

I sat back and stared at that and the question ran through my head like a neon billboard, “How does that work? Just how the hell do you want to be a writer and not like to read?”

So I sent this person a message and asked. I told him that to be a writer you have to love words, love stories…

Well, here’s the exchange, sans names:

Okay, you sent me a friend request, so I looked at your profile. It says you want to be a writer, but then under Books you say you don’t read much.

How does that work? You want to be a writer you have to love words, you have to love stories, you have to love it on the page, and that means reading A LOT.

You might just blow this off, but don’t. If you really want to be a writer, you must read. That’s where you learn your craft, sure, but more importantly that’s where you nurture the love of what you say you want to do.

American Culture • Art • Communication • Culture • Education • Featured • Writing
Full Story
2
Conspiracies, Fiction, and New TV
By Mark Tiedemann on July 08th, 2009

Conspiracies, Fiction, and New TV

Time out for a bit of pop culture. Indulge me, this is only marginally serious.

I just finished watching the new show on SyFy called Warehouse 13. I enjoyed it, it was a good ride, even though they clearly went after the X-Files crowd with this one. It could be worth a few hours to see where they go with it. They took the endless warehouse from Indiana Jones, added some National Treasure grace notes, stirred in a dollop of Muldur and Scully, and introduced a bit of humor. That last is very important, because when you have a premise that is this borderline, taking it too seriously is risking alienating a lot of audience. The main reason the X-Files worked was the mood, the color, the textures that Chris Carter wove into it, and he played the conspiracy theory game like a master. But for me, it got very old very fast.

The problems with the X-Files were manifold and manifest. The biggest one was Scully. She was the dumbest “scientist” I’d ever seen on television or read in fiction. To remain so obdurately unseeing through all that she was put through required zero imagination in the character, zero sense of humor, and probably some sort of serial fixation or related pathology. If they’d played that up it might have worked, but for pity’s sake she was just dense. And therefore unbelievable.

Not to mention, of course, that much of the “science” in X-Files was atrocious. But that’s a charge that can be leveled as many shows on television, many movies, and quite a few novels.

(It would seem to me, though, that when a show is based supposedly on science, even fringe science, an attempt would be made to Get It Right. It wouldn’t take much in most instances, just someone on staff who could say “That won’t work” and then offer a way that it would. I understand some shows have such a person, but he or she is more often ignored than heeded, probably because the recommendations wouldn’t be dramatic. But I often wonder if the real reason they’re ignored is because the assumption is made that putting in valid science would make the audience feel stupid—since clearly it makes the producers of the shows feel stupid!)

The other problem with it was the profundity of the secrets ultimately being kept. It worked well when Muldur was just going through a bunch of old case files no one wanted to tackle because they led to bizarre places. Kept modest like that would have allowed the concept to work on the fringe, where it started out, and could have been very entertaining. But when it became this all-encompassing, “the aliens have been here and we are in league with them” kind of schtick, it became ridiculous.

Because they were trying to keep it consistent with mimetic fiction.

Art • Featured • Media • Writing
Full Story
14
Want to know what I think?
By Hank on July 01st, 2009

Want to know what I think?

That’s why you’re on the internet, cruising the interblargosphere. You’re looking for things to read that you might not necessarily agree with but which spark your interest because you’re always on the lookout for a new take or new point of view on something. It might even be something you already have a definite opinion on, but you read on because you like reading things that make you think regardless of whether you agree with them. You’re all about soaking up as many differing viewpoints as you can, but you’ve no interest in entering a comment-battle so if you do object, you do so in silence (possible but unlikely). You may be looking for things to read that you already know you agree with and very little else (more likely). You may even be looking for things to read that not only contradict you but flat-out piss you off in order to inspire you to write a post for the blog you’ve been neglecting (if you have a blog, that’s almost a given).

I’ll admit I’m one who trawls for material to inspire my personal outrage, vicious condemnation and inordinately long & verbose sentences, but it’s not a new addition to my activity budget. Long before the internet I was fond of writing essays, treatises, critiques, manifestos, poems (gah!) or comic strips about things which annoyed or intrigued me, or into which I’d put an inordinate amount of idle thought. They were many & varied: a convoluted comparison between the dangers of running red lights at a pedestrian crossing on my BMX with doing the same in a car; a detailed essay on the specific mechanisms of “clown evil” and the macro-karmic reasons for their hideousness; my pseudo-Freudian theories on why some men spend inordinate lengths of time reading in the toilet, delaying every other resident not currently using a colostomy bag and glorying in their own pungent stench; a series of unnecessarily graphic limericks featuring my best friend, a busty wench and zombies. Before 1994 and my first experience with electronic mail I’d fax (yes, fax), post or hand these missives to my friends and see what reactions I’d get. They ranged from “meh” to humouring me, the occasional laugh, occasional indignant defensiveness and – more often than not – sideways looks and quiet voicings of concern for my mental stability (especially when my letters were illustrated). I didn’t know it then, but with my unsolicited opinionated ranting, arguments for or against things noone was actually discussing in the real world and blatant & ridiculous attention-seeking behaviour, I was in Gilbert & Sullivan’s parlance the very model of a modern major pain the arse. In today’s terms: a blogger.

So, no, it’s not a new thing for me and certainly not a new phenomenon for humanity either, this public sharing of opinion with people who don’t care. Celebrated Protestant Original Gangster, Martin Luther, is famous for publicly posting his disagreements . . .

Communication • Community • Cultural Evolution • Culture • Human animals • Humor • Internet • Language • Uncategorized • Writing • computers
Full Story
1
By Mark Tiedemann on June 19th, 2009

No Excuse—A Personal Gripe

Generally speaking, I don’t like to criticize books. Tim Powers told us at Clarion that a sale negates all criticism. That may be more true with fiction (though I reserve the right to privately diss any book that’s badly done, regardless) but when it comes to nonfiction, I find it inexcusable.

I’ve been slogging—slogging, mind you—through a history of the rise of the Spanish Empire under Fernando and Isabel, the period during which the New World (?) was discovered by Europeans and Spain became the pre-eminent power on the global scene. The book is called Rivers of Gold and it was penned by one Hugh Thomas, published in 2003. I’m finding it virtually unreadable.

Partly this is a style issue. The prose are flat, lifeless. He makes the mistake of introducing casts of characters in one-paragraph lumps, as if the average reader is going to remember all these people, many of whom do not seem to matter in later parts of the narrative. We are given chunks of delightful detail about some things (the make-up of Columbus’s crews on both the first and second voyage, which is very telling about the geopolitics of the day) and the rather revolutionary nature of Fernando’s and Isabel’s co-rule (for it was genuinely a partnership) and then little about other things (like the ultimate disposition of the Muslim populations after the fall of Granada and what happened to their libraries, which directly impacted the rest of Europe).

But these are small quibbles. Thomas seems to have a bias toward Christianity, but he is clearly restraining himself throughout and attempting to be even-handed, and largely succeeds (sincere mourning for what became of the Jews). He orders the events well, so that we see the relevance of Fernando and Isabel adhering to Law rather than acting as autocrats and their background and education as it affected their judgment concerning what Columbus found and what his enemies told them.

American Culture • Communication • Community • Culture • Education • History • Language • Writing
Full Story
0
By Erich Vieth on June 16th, 2009

Time to regulate pundits

Joshua Green at The Atlantic thinks it’s time to punish pundits who are consistently wrong in their opinions. They should be measured for accuracy and then there should be harsh consequences.

Sounds good to me.

American Culture • Censorship • Community • Writing
Full Story
4
By Mark Tiedemann on June 03rd, 2009

Compassionate Fangs

Last week I received my DVD of Dreams With Sharp Teeth, the new documentary about Harlan Ellison. I’ve watched it a couple of times now, thoroughly enjoying it. Neil Gaiman makes the observation in the film that Ellison has been engaged in a great big piece of performance art called “Harlan Ellison” and I think he’s spot on. Harlan—he is one of the only writers who ever worked in the realm of fantastic literature to be known almost immediately by his first name—is very much part and parcel of his work. You don’t get the one without the other.

Which is not to say the work doesn’t stand on its own. It does, very much so. No doubt there are many people who have read the occasional Ellison story and found it…well, however they found it. Anything, I imagine, but trivial. If they then go on to become fans of the stories, eventually they will become aware of the person, mainly by virtue of the extensive introductions Harlan writes to just about everything he does, secondarily by the stories told by those who know, or think they know, something about him, either through personal experience or by word of mouth.

He’s fascinating to watch. Sometimes it’s like watching a tornado form.

Harlan was born in 1934, which makes him 75 now. This seems incredible to me, sobering even. He will always seem to me to be about 40, even though I have seen him now for years with white hair and other attributes of age. The voice has gotten a bit rougher, but he’s just as sharp as ever.

I have been in his actual presence on two occasions. In 1986 he showed up in Atlanta at the world SF convention that year and I have a couple of autographed books as a result. He dominated a good part of one day for us. The second time was in 1999 or so, at a small convention called ReaderCon in Massachussetts, where he was guest of honor. On that occasion I had lunch with him and few others and that lunch remains memorable, because I got to see the man when he isn’t On. That is, it was before the convention began and he was, so to speak, “off duty” and was more relaxed, less hyperbolic. And it was a great pleasure. It is easy to see why people are drawn to him.

He is something of a contradiction.

American Culture • Art • Censorship • Communication • Films • Noteworthy • Reading - Books and Magazines • Recommended Reading/Films/Sites • Writing
Full Story
13
Father of two charged in child poisoning case
By Mike Pulcinella on May 11th, 2009

Father of two charged in child poisoning case

ASSIMULATED PRESS

Regency, Alabama - A prominent business owner is being charged in the poisoning and near death of his two children.

Alabama Child Protective Services was notified when the children of prominent Regency land developer Ian Oda were brought into Eden County General Hospital convulsing and showing other signs of poisoning. When questioned about what had happened, Mr. Oda explained that the children, Alex 7 and Elizabeth 6, had ingested poisoned food that he had warned them not to eat. “I told them the rules and they disobeyed me. This is their fault.”

Police and CPS agents were dispatched to the Oda home where they found an elaborate fenced-in playground which had been built specifically for the children. Neighbors reported that they had seen the children enjoying themselves and running naked around the playground for several days before the incident. Food, snacks and beverages were scattered throughout the area. However, some of the treats had been laced with strychnine and piled all together at the base of a large apple tree.

Further complicating matters was the news that a former employee of Mr. Oda had been seen talking to the children shortly before they arrived at the hospital. Mr. Levi Natas had been overheard telling Elizabeth that the poisoned snacks were actually the tastiest snacks of all and that their father was hoarding them for himself.

Mr. Natas had worked for Mr. Oda’s company for many years but had a falling out and been let go under contentious circumstances in 2004. Mr. Natas then started his own rival company in Regency and has been notorious for trying to undermine many of Mr. Oda’s construction projects.

When questioned about the incident Mr. Oda said, “Oh yes, I saw Mr. Natas talking to Elizabeth. I saw everything. My living room window overlooks the playground. But the children knew the rules. That was the only pile of snacks I had asked them not to eat.”

Mr. Oda faces charges of reckless endangerment. Although the children have recovered, Mr. Oda stated to police that they are no longer welcome in his home, will never be allowed back into the playground, and that their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will also never be allowed to play there.

In a prepared statement which Mr. Oda dictated to one of his assistants while the assistant was asleep, he proclaimed, “I have an employee that can clean up this mess. I promise I will send him. But it may take a few thousand years before I get around to it.”

Featured • Humor • Religion • Whimsy • Writing • hypocrisy
Full Story
Older Entries