Cantara’s Notebook

Why the Movie Industry is SO Wrong About SOPA

2012-01-28T19:53:00.000-05:00

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) claims that SOPA and PIPA are aimed at stopping online piracy. But as this infographic demonstrates, it’s really about fighting innovation. Thanks to Matador Network for this infographic. (Click on illustration for larger picture.)

Just a Shout-Out to Annette Haven

2012-01-07T20:45:00.000-05:00

Lovely, tiny, elegant woman. I never did scenes with her, but some of my scenes may have been interpolated in her movies.

Rules for the Revolution

2011-11-06T10:45:00.003-05:00

Do I have to come back to America and slap you all upside the head? Even the Weather Underground wouldn't have fucked up as much as you have.

All right—here are the rules for the revolution:

DO NOT bring the children. For Christ's sake leave them with the sitter. Children who are too young to understand the cause shouldn't be put in jeopardy for the cause.
DO NOT make life harder for the elderly and infirm.
Appoint leaders. Yes, you're going to have to do this. You can throw them to the wolves later.
Hide the money! Your leaders can do this for you.
DO NOT let in spongers.
Cut out the luxuries! NO MORE organic chicken dinners and sheep's-milk-cheese salads!
DO NOT disrespect your food crew!
DO respect your environment—which includes its permanent residents.
Rally to a SPECIFIC CAUSE. This is a strength, not a weakness.
ARTICULATE THE FUCKING MISSION!!! Failure to do this is what undid the Weather Underground.
If you're going to long-term live/demonstrate in the street the cops and the conservatives aren't your worst enemy—it's the street itself.
Put down that fucking laptop and stop blogging. THIS ISN'T SPAIN AND YOU'RE NO GEORGE ORWELL. Orwell was up in the hills with a rifle. After the war, then he wrote.
STOP PLAYING TO THE CAMERAS!
Update: And for Christ's sake--literally--DON'T STEAL FROM OR VANDALIZE CHURCHES!

My husband marched in Selma specifically to protect black voters and defend the Voting Rights Act of 1965. My aunt in Manila was part of a human cordon of nuns who protected ballot boxes from being stolen and destroyed by Marcos's thugs. I'm part Catalonian and for all I know I had cousins up there in the hills with Orwell.

Now, behave yourselves or I'll strap you all to a chair and fucking make you watch Running on Empty till you puke.

The Requisite Condiment: A Parody

2011-10-31T02:36:00.000-04:00

[This is the website photo. Really.]

A Parody on BBC 4 Extra of
THE EXQUISITE CONTINENT

The Requisite Condiment: An expedition led by the stalwart Colonel Dijon Mustard, accompanied by his loyal aide-de-camp Major Grey Chutney and their driver, the young but resolute Corporal Malt Vinegar. They propose to take the A-1 to Worcestershire where they will immediately head for the Great Wasabi Range in search for the legendary Miracle Whip of the lost tribe of Bovril. But will their plans be thwarted by the mysterous villian known as "The Horseradish"? In five episodes.

Episode 1: It's a Long Way to Piccalilli
Episode 2: An Adventure to Relish
Episode 3: What's Sauce for the Goose...
Episode 4: The Creaming of Horseradish
Episode 5: The Grilling Conclusion

The Unfinished Legacy of 2010 by Frank Viviano

2011-10-20T08:09:00.000-04:00

Take a close and objective look at the angry demonstrators now gathered on Wall Street, and at similar protest encampments burgeoning from San Francisco to Madrid. What you see is not simply a vast expression of rage at the crisis enveloping the world of democracy.
The demonstrations also frame a fundamental contradiction—a profound source of strength that has been transformed into a disabling weakness.

They deserve enormous credit for drawing a global spotlight to the perpetrators of that crisis: a sinister cabal of financial scamsters and rightwing politicians, backed by the dubiously “grassroots” electorate of the Tea Party. What almost no one, on the right or left alike, wants to talk about is that the cabal was empowered by the very people who are now denouncing it.

Progressives, out of a mixture of political correctness and embarrassment, carefully avoid the subject. The Republicans are delighted at the silence, because it masks what should be fatal weaknesses in their own position.

It may not be pleasant to hear, but a massive Democratic voter copout in last year’s elections is what put the reactionary right in the driver’s seat, creating the disastrous logjam in Congress, and bringing to a dead halt the hyperactive first two years of the Obama Administration.

Copout at the Polls

In 2008, more than 65 million Americans cast Democratic votes in Congressional races, a 13 million-vote edge over the Republicans. In 2010, the Democratic vote plummeted to an abysmal 35 million, 6 million less than the GOP, which took decisive power in the House and paralyzed the Senate.

We think we know this story. But the truth is, we haven’t begun to absorb its full details and implications yet:

The number of voters under 24 who bothered to go to the polls in 2010 dropped by a stupefying 60 percent, and those between 24 and 29 by almost 50 percent. Altogether, the participation of young people—who had been overwhelmingly pro-Obama in 2008– declined by 11 million votes.

Among over-65-year-olds, the core of the Tea Party Movement, the voting numbers barely changed, from 17.6 million in 2008 to 17.5 million in 2010.

The African-American vote fell by 40 percent, and the Hispanic vote by almost 30 percent.

Among the mostly white voters who earn more than $200,000 per year, the turnout fell by a scant 5 percent, from 7 million to 6.5 million.

Voting by those with annual incomes under $30,000 dropped by 33 percent, more than six times the figure for the affluent.

In effect, the abstainers turned a potential Democratic landslide into a full-scale collapse—with nightmarish consequences for civil rights, for the U.S. and world economies, and for social programs that range across the board from health care and educational funding to employment programs, pension benefits and the sagging national infrastructure.

It was a dream come true for the radical right, the sworn enemies of all public services. Their vote, measured at exit polls asking whether government was too intrusive, scarcely changed between the two elections, dropping from 50 million to 47 million.

At the same time, the number of voters believing that government should do more for its citizens—the central plank of the progressive platform—sunk from 60 million to 32 million, a staggering 47 percent slide.

These are astronomical, game-changing numbers. It makes no sense to argue that the Democratic voting collapse was a matter of demoralization. Decisions on whether to go to the polls were made by the early autumn of 2010, just 20 months into an Obama Administration that had pushed through what many analysts regard as the most ambitious legislative agenda in modern US history.

Half a century ago, Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez understood that genuine change could only be achieved through long term, patient struggle—and that the prize, in King’s famous words, was full access to the nation’s key institutions, notably the ballot box and the governing seats it fills.

The leaders and foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Era fought with unflagging commitment, and King himself was martyred, in a two-decade campaign for the voting privileges that 2010 abstainers dismissed as unworthy of an hour’s time on a single Tuesday in November. The Wall Street demonstrators are now debating an even broader boycott of the 2012 presidential election.

Yet if two-thirds of the 28 million progressive stay-at-homes had gone to the polls last year, the U.S. Congress today would be in the hands of a solid Democratic majority beholden to liberal votes.

The Republicans’ Best Hope

The nation’s key institutions stand at a momentous crossroads, ripe for fresh ideas and energy.

But in response, the anthem so far is nebulous anti-institutionalism, a “leaderless resistance movement,” as the Occupy Wall Street web site proudly boasts, without defined structure or goals. “It’s not any more about parties, organizations or unions,” declares the manifesto of its Spanish counterpart, the International Commission of Sol, which also calls for mass abstention from voting.

Visceral impatience is endemic today, especially where the young are concerned. The Internet Age, with its virtual substitutes for the real thing—for tangible community, for productive struggle—promises to deliver on every desire, easily and instantly. Just twitter a crowd into the streets, and the rest will fall into place. But the hard truth is that it takes far more than that. Ask the Iranians, the Tunisians and Egyptians, who are invariably cited as models by the Spanish and American protestors.

Neither easy nor instant solutions are possible when a society faces the challenges that greeted the incoming Obama Administration in January of 2009. The nation’s first African-American president took office amidst two unwinnable and unfunded wars and a global economic crash unparalleled since the Great Depression. He was confronted by a rabid political opposition that challenged the new president’s very right to govern on trumped-up charges that he is not certifiably “American”, when their transparent subtext was that he is not white.

As much as anything else, Barack Obama’s ascent to the presidency was about the slow work of acquiring power and responsibility in the machinery of representative government. So too were the many milestones that preceded his victory: the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that dismantled segregated schools; the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin; its elaboration in 1965 with a Voting Rights Act that removed the last obstacles to the polls, and a presidential executive order enforcing affirmative action guidelines.

Each of those institutional steps flowed from the pressure exerted by election results, and each of them helped rewrite the terms of national life. Only someone who was not alive in the 1950s, when the struggle began in earnest, could maintain that nothing important has changed in the United States since then.

It is far more accurate to say that almost everything has changed—which is what terrifies the conservative right. They recognize that the institutions of representative democracy are expressions of collective interest, and that the crucial vectors of population and age are aligned against them.

Their sole hope for turning back the clock lies in a new majority that doesn’t bother to vote.

A Poem for Occupy the Streets Global Day

2011-10-15T10:50:00.000-04:00

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

"The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats

Under the Volcano Bookstore Opens Today

2011-10-14T11:18:00.000-04:00

The time has come. The only used English bookstore for decades in what foreigners call “Mexico City” is about to open its doors, and we proudly invite you to be here on our first day.

Come by anytime from 11 AM to 7PM to check out the digs, have a cup of joe, meet new friends, buy a book from our thousands of titles—the largest selection in the city—and later in the day enjoy fresh-grilled burgers, Gringo guacamole, and delicious, transcendental pulque in our elegant Old World courtyard.

DJ Zorrita will play the Goth and punk rock records of our youth, we'll get some fiery games going in the alley and there'll be a surprise or two.

I'd like to take this opportunity also to thank the many donors, investors and supporters who have for more than a year been pushing this to where we are now: the list is too long to put here. But when you get to the store, step inside and look up.

—Grant Cogswell

UNDER THE VOLCANO BOOKS
Cerrada Chiapas 40-C
Col. Roma Norte
Del. Cuauhtémoc
Distrito Federal
Mexico City
MEXICO 06700

Google Map: g.co/maps/2a66z
Website: underthevolcanobooks.com
To Donate Books: underthevolcanobooks@gmail.com

Mission Statement: To establish an embassy for the soul of the English-speaking world—its literature—in Mexico; an educational resource for Chilangos learning English and eager to explore the artistic reach of the language; a foundation for an international literary magazine, Mexico Review, appearing in 2011; a web-free, Kindle-less island of analog time in the digital sea; a community center for Commonwealth and American expatriates in the most exciting, vibrant and accessible city on Earth; an institution that will pay tribute to that city's magnificence with the best our native culture has to offer.

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Mother and Son, Courtesy of Nichols and May

2011-08-30T19:00:00.000-04:00

What can I say about Mike Nichols and Elaine May that hasn’t been said before, except to pass on this anecdote: When Tommy Smothers paid an on-stage tribute to Elaine May, he asked her in his typical aw-shucks way:

Tommy: So did you guys have an affair back then, or what?

Elaine: Exactly.

Here’s their perhaps most famous sketch, I think it was from the Jack Paar show. Heck, even I remember it.

(As ever, click to play, right-click to download.)

[Son's Phone Call to Mom]

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Paul Carr Thinks Graham Swift is Another Old Fart (And I Agree)

2011-08-26T13:17:00.000-04:00

It's a generally accepted rule that you shouldn't take too seriously anything an author says while promoting his book on the radio. Or at least I thought it was a generally accepted rule. Certainly, Christopher Buckley tells a great anecdote about the time he was asked by a radio host whether, per the author bio on his novel Little Green Men, he really had acted as policy advisor to William Howard Taft. Not only did Buckley happily confirm that he had advised President Taft, but he spent the remainder of the interview discussing the specific advice he'd imparted to the (very) late statesman. Of course Buckley said something ridiculous on the radio—he had a book to promote.

And so it was that Booker Prize-winning author Graham Swift appeared on the BBC's World At One program this past Wednesday to promote his new book, Wish You Were Here. Asked for his views on the rise of ebooks, he said this:

"I think the tendency will be that writers will get even less than they get now for their work and sadly that could mean that some potential writers will see that they can't make a living, they will give up and the world would be poorer for the books they might have written, so in that way it is quite a serious prospect."

Or put in simpler terms, Swift suggested that would-be novelists are likely to look at the low royalties paid on ebooks and think "screw this writing lark, I'm going to become a plumber."

Such a patently ludicrous statement should have led to a collective rolling of eyes. "Oh that Graham Swift," we all ought to have said, "he'll say anything to sell a book." Incredibly though—perhaps because Swift won the Booker, or maybe because the publishing industry is so frightened of technology that they'll repeat any old scare story, and perhaps at least in part because the Internet will repeat any claim at all—Swift's words made (SEO-friendly) headlines around the world. From the Telegraph and the Daily Mail to the Hindustan Times and the Huffington Post, all repeated his opinion as terrifying fact. "Digital rates could dissuade authors from writing."

Now, of course, Mr. Swift's standing in the literary world gives me pause before I call him a fucking idiot. Furthermore, his status demands that I take a deep breath before suggesting that he is a clueless old fool, babbling about technology he doesn't understand to a BBC journalist too awestruck to challenge him. And it certainly requires that I at least count to three before breaking down all of the ways that, from start to finish, Swift's interview was a towering tidal wave of horseshit.

One, two—okay.

Swift's first assertion—that low royalties mean would-be authors might choose not to write—is idiocy, pure and simple. Ask a roomful of successful authors why they decided to write and not one of them will answer "for the money," any more than a hooker would say she chose her profession "for the flowers and candy."

Even for those of us lucky enough to have won a book deal, being an author is a pretty ghastly way to earn a crust. If being paid was our primary motivation, we'd have been far better off working in advertising or PR or posing as African princes to con idiots out of their savings. The reality is, those of us who write books for a living do so because we choose to: either because we have some burning desire to tell a story, or because we've tried real jobs and found ourselves lacking. We'd write for free (and frequently have done so)—but winning a book deal means we get to sleep till noon and spend our afternoons dicking around on YouTube when we should be typing. Moreover, the notion that authors have to choose between writing and a proper job has no basis in reality. Trollope, Kafka, Faulkner, Heller, Bukowski, Eliot, Grisham, King, Fleming, Chaucer... the list of authors who held down day jobs while working on their masterpieces is likely longer than those who didn't. You can add Graham Swift to that list too: his first novel, The Sweet-Shop Owner, was written in short 5AM. bursts before the author headed to his teaching job.

But still Swift drones on about the evil of ebooks, his argument growing wider—and weirder—as the interview progresses. It turns out, digital publishing is going to starve all authors, not just newbies:

When anything goes digital, let alone something as immaterial as a book, there is a tendency to see it as just in the air to be taken, and to lose the sense that somebody once made it… I think the purveyors of e-books are only too happy for this atmosphere of ‘everything belongs to everybody’ to increase because it means they don’t have to think so much about the original maker of the thing, or they can get away with paying them less.

Nurse, the screens! If I understand Swift correctly—and, depressingly, I do—he's suggesting that the purveyors of ebooks want people to believe that books are free, so they can get away with paying smaller royalties to authors. It's unclear who Swift means by "the purveyors of ebooks." Perhaps he's talking about Amazon or Apple—companies whose ereaders contain more anti-piracy measures than a Somali oil tanker, making it near-impossible for readers to re-sell, loan or even quote text from their legally purchased ebooks.

No, you're right, he can't mean them. It must be the publishers, then, who want us to see books as "just in the air to be taken." Except that everything the publishing industry has done so far—from forcing Amazon to charge inflated prices for ebooks to trying to block Google Books from indexing their authors' text—suggests they value ebooks very highly indeed; perhaps a little too highly. (I can't speak for Swift's publisher, but my own contract with Weidenfeld &amp; Nicolson—part of Hachette—offers perfectly agreeable terms for ebooks; and I haven't even won the Booker.)

Next up, Swift takes aim at those who suggest impoverished authors should find other ways to profit from their work: "You can't perform a book—so if writers go and give readings, or whatever, that's not as it were the equivalent of their book. It's that wonderful reading experience… that matters."

Anyone who has read Last Orders, the novel which won Swift his Booker, will know what he's talking about. It's a truly beautiful piece of writing, and one that can only really be appreciated in its original, printed form. How heartbreaking it must have been, then, for Swift to find himself forced to allow Last Orders to be adapted into a critically acclaimed movie starring Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins. And how he must have wept when he read the New York Times review of the film....

For Mr. Schepisi, who wrote and directed the film version of Last Orders, the principal challenge must have been how to translate the specific gravity of Mr. Swift's prose, with its multiple narrators and its stripped-down cockney lyricism, into the light and shadow of cinema.... Mr. Schepisi... has succeeded beyond all expectation.

One can only hope the big fat check Swift will have received from the movie company went some way towards fucking his pain away.

And so finally Swift's horseshit tsunami reaches its greatest height with the tale of Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) who, Swift tells us, turned the publisher-author relationship on its head by convincing Macmillan to publish Alice In Wonderland ("and pay for that process"), with Dodgson keeping a literally incredible 90% of the proceeds.

"In my view, that is the correct arrangement," Swift tells the BBC, "but of course it would be sheer wonderland now to go to a publisher and say: 'I can give you a royalty.'"

Yeah! Except that's exactly not what happened. Alice In Wonderland was published by Macmillan, and the publisher did take a very small percentage of the proceeds, with Dodgson pocketing the rest. But that's because Alice, like many books in the 1800s, was published "on commission." Today we'd call it vanity publishing: Dodgson's deal with Macmillan required that the author pay all of the costs of printing and producing Alice, with the publisher acting as a distributor. If the book did well (as it did, in Dodgson's case), Macmillan only received its 10% commission—but if it failed to break even (as most books did then, and still do today) the author was in the hole for all of the costs.

Frankly, I'd rather stick with my greedy old regular publisher for my next book than risk financial ruin going it alone, but if that's really the deal that Swift wants, he's in luck: today, any budding Charles Dodgson need only upload his work to the Kindle or iBooks stores and up to 70% of the cover price will be his to keep—accessing an enormous consumer base with one-click purchasing enabled, all without a single penny due in printing costs. (This is, after all, how Ars Technica just made $15,000 in 24 hours, with their 27,300-word assessment of the new Mac operating system, and how Jon Krakauer moved 20,000 copies in a few days of his latest essay.) A wonderland indeed! You fucking idiot.

—Paul Carr

Source: http://www.theawl.com/2011/08/mr-swifts-moronic-proposal-ebooks-will-keep-writers-from-writing

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Tinikling, the Filipino Folk Dance I Could Never Get Right

2011-08-24T13:55:00.000-04:00

[Amoroso's famous painting of this Philippine folk dance]

In commemoration of the US wide release of John Sayles' new fiilm, Amigo, here are the Bayanihans in a rendition of that bane of Filipino kids everywhere. I always got my ankles caught between those damn bamboo poles. (Click to play, right-click to download.)

[Tiniking]

He Got Her Shrieking in the Desert

2011-08-24T11:42:00.002-04:00

I have come to realize the big mistake that Arthur Miller made when he tried to "save" his second wife, Marilyn Monroe.

From the Play Maria by Isaac Babel

2011-08-14T11:01:00.005-04:00

Who knows what can happen, Yasha? They might ask you to blow up the street you were born on, and you would blow it up. Or to blast an orphanage to bits, and you'd say, "A two-zero-eight fuse," and blast that orphanage to bits. That's what you would do, Yasha, as long as they let you live your life, strum your guitar, and sleep with thin women. You're fat but you like them thin. You'll do anything, if they tell you to renounce your mother three times, you would renounce her three times. But that's not the point, Yasha! The point is they will want more: they won't let you drink vodka with the people you like, they'll make you read boring books, and the songs they teach you will be boring, too. Then you'll be mad, my dear Red Artillerist. You'll be furious, your eyes will start rolling! Then two citizens will come visiting: "Let's go, Comrade Kravchenko." "Should I take any personal effects with me or not," you'll ask them. "No, you needn't take any personal effects with you. It'll be a quick interrogation, over in a minute." And that will be the end of you, my dear Red Artillerist. It'll cost them four kopecks. It's been calculated that a Colt bullet costs four kopecks and not a centime more.

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The Woman Who Knew About Steel and Sponge

2011-08-10T12:45:00.000-04:00

[Lorraine Hansberry 1930-65]

A little preliminary reading/research in preparation for my new novel which has to do with radical politics, radical chic, and sexual experimentation in New York of the 70s brought me to Hansberry's last Broadway play before her death, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, which has to do with private and political disillusionment in the 60s. Michael just reminded me that she was also a stone lesbian, which suddenly made me look differently at her photographs—oh, baby. Plus, as one critic put it, "she ha(d) an X-ray vision when it comes to spotting the steel or the sponge in a character." That's my kind of woman.

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Move Over, Darling

2011-08-09T11:39:00.009-04:00

[That's Polly Bergen you're massaging there]

In her campiest pictures Doris Day had more sexuality in her little finger than most of these zygotes today. Except for Monroe, she's the only screen blonde who's ever turned me on.

[Move Over, Darling]

The Voice of Words by Robert McCrum

2011-08-05T22:41:00.004-04:00

[Slow down and listen]

One paradox of literary culture is that, although speech precedes literacy, and the mother tongue the alphabet, it is usually the written, not the spoken, word that attracts the most attention. So, for at least 1,000 years, English literature lived on the lips and in the memory of Everyman, handed down in folk culture. Then along came Caxton and his Westminster printing press. We have been eating paper and drinking printer's ink ever since.

The spoken word, however, retains its ancient magic. The market for the audiobook has defied the recession. Poets draw full houses. Last week, in Norwich, I heard JM Coetzee give a memorable reading to a sold-out audience in the Playhouse as part of a lively and popular literary programme. Coetzee's dry, understated performance, mirroring his prose, was a vivid reminder that the spoken word rarely fails to entertain or console.

None of this would have surprised the Greeks. Apollo was God of poetry and healing. Literature does not have to be private and meditative, though that's what is often celebrated about the book. As a communal and collaborative experience, reading can be therapeutic. Increasingly, teachers and health professionals are coming round to the view, expressed by DH Lawrence, that "one sheds one's sickness in books".

The Reader Organisation, a national charity launched in 1997, has promoted its "reading revolution" to firefighters, psychiatrists and schoolteachers, in prisons, rehab centres, hospitals and schools. It's a mission that began in Liverpool after a reading by Doris Lessing. Today, the organisation champions the curative power of reading aloud. According to its director, Jane Davis, research has begun to uncover what most writers would willingly concede: the extraordinary connection between writing, reading and good health.

Davis describes how one of her colleagues had been holding weekly meetings with "Barbara", who was barely literate, and oppressed by a long-term relationship with a "difficult" partner. After each session, Barbara would profess indifference to reading until, one day, she chanced to read WE Henley's celebration of heroic Victorian individualism, "Invictus", ending with the stanza:

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

This time, Barbara repeated this passage to herself, unprompted. When asked why she had done this, she confessed that "It makes me feel happy." She is hardly the first. "Invictus", of course, is the poem that sustained Nelson Mandela during his long incarceration on Robben Island, and the title of the recent film, starring Morgan Freeman, about how it inspired him to unite South Africa. Lighter moments in this "reading cure" include an old lady, in a group reading Othello, who asked to take the part of Iago, because "I was married to that bastard for 30 years".

Listening to the spoken word is one of the most profound sources of comfort. The sense of being looked after, nourished and replenished, is like being fed. The listener can relax and place their trust in the reader. The experience is quite unlike reading to oneself. Part of this, claims Davis, comes from "the slowness of the human voice". When we are engaged at the pace of ordinary speech, we don't skip on, we engage with the many levels of meaning in the story. It grows deeper and more real. From this, people start to talk freely about what a text has meant to them – and become liberated in their personal lives.

To promote this programme, the Reader Organisation is about to launch an anthology of prose and poetry, A Little, Aloud, for reading out in one of the hundreds of "read aloud" groups that have been springing up across the UK. It's an eclectic volume, with well-chosen gobbets from Tennyson, Dickens, Saki and Yeats as well as Elizabeth Jennings, Anna Sewell, the Brontes, Louisa M Alcott and Joanne Harris.

"Bibliotherapy" is not yet in the dictionary, but if this campaign takes wing, it might turn out to be a really important breakthrough in the practice of mental health. Words becoming deeds: it's a winning formula.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/04/reading-aloud-therapy-health-books

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Americanisms: Dontcha Just Love ’Em?

2011-08-03T15:48:00.022-04:00

[Good Ol' Lord Chesterfield]

The BBC News Magazine's recent piece on Americanisms entering the language in the UK prompted thousands to email examples. Here are 50 of the most emailed.

1. When people ask for something, I often hear: "Can I get a..." It infuriates me. It's not New York. It's not the 90s. You're not in Central Perk with the rest of the Friends. Really." Steve, Rossendale, Lancashire

[This is lunch deli speech, and has to do with one's actual ability to be waited on when one is in a three-deep crowd at the counter. Literally it is, "Do I have the ability to catch your attention and receive my order?" ~Cantara]

2. The next time someone tells you something is the "least worst option", tell them that their most best option is learning grammar. Mike Ayres, Bodmin, Cornwall

3. The phrase I've watched seep into the language (especially with broadcasters) is "two-time" and "three-time". Have the words double, triple etc, been totally lost? Grammatically it makes no sense, and is even worse when spoken. My pulse rises every time I hear or see it. Which is not healthy as it's almost every day now. Argh! D Rochelle, Bath

4. Using 24/7 rather than "24 hours, 7 days a week" or even just plain "all day, every day". Simon Ball, Worcester

[This is 7-11 speech, and you're right. ~Cantara]

5. The one I can't stand is "deplane", meaning to disembark an aircraft, used in the phrase "you will be able to deplane momentarily". TykeIntheHague, Den Haag, Holland

6. To "wait on" instead of "wait for" when you're not a waiter—once read a friend's comment about being in a station waiting on a train. For him, the train had yet to arrive—I would have thought rather that it had got stuck at the station with the friend on board. T Balinski, Raglan, New Zealand

7. "It is what it is." Pity us. Michael Knapp, Chicago, US

8. Dare I even mention the "fanny pack"? Lisa, Red Deer, Canada

9. "Touch bases". It makes me cringe no end. Chris, UK

10. Is "physicality" a real word? Curtis, US

11. Transportation. What's wrong with transport? Greg Porter, Hercules CA US

12. The word I hate to hear is "leverage". Pronounced lev-er-ig rather than lee-ver -ig. It seems to pop up in all aspects of work. And its meaning seems to have changed to "value added". Gareth Wilkins, Leicester

13. Does nobody celebrate a birthday anymore, must we all "turn" 12 or 21 or 40? Even the Duke of Edinburgh was universally described as "turning" 90 last month. When did this begin? I quite like the phrase in itself, but it seems to have obliterated all other ways of speaking about birthdays. Michael McAndrew, Swindon

14. I caught myself saying "shopping cart" instead of shopping trolley today and was thoroughly disgusted with myself. I've never lived nor been to the US either. Graham Nicholson, Glasgow

[A trolley rolls on a track. "Shopping cart" is correct. ~Cantara]

15. What kind of word is "gotten"? It makes me shudder. Julie Marrs, Warrington

16. "I'm good" for "I'm well". That'll do for a start. Mike, Bridgend, Wales

17. "Bangs" for a fringe of the hair. Philip Hall, Nottingham

18. "Takeout" rather than takeaway! Simon Ball, Worcester

19. I enjoy Americanisms. I suspect even some Americans use them in a tongue-in-cheek manner? "That statement was the height of ridiculosity." Bob, Edinburgh

20. "A half hour" instead of "half an hour". EJB, Devon

21. A "heads up". For example, as in a business meeting. Lets do a "heads up" on this issue. I have never been sure of the meaning. R Haworth, Marlborough

22. "Train station." My teeth are on edge every time I hear it. Who started it? Have they been punished? Chris Capewell, Queens Park, London

[I give up. What do the English call it? ~Cantara]

23. To put a list into alphabetical order is to "alphabetize it"—horrid! Chris Fackrell, York

24. People that say "my bad" after a mistake. I don't know how anything could be as annoying or lazy as that. Simon Williamson, Lymington, Hampshire

25. "Normalcy" instead of "normality" really irritates me. Tom Gabbutt, Huddersfield

26. As an expat living in New Orleans, it is a very long list but "burglarize" is currently the word that I most dislike. Simon, New Orleans

[Right on. It's "burgle". Really.]

27. "Oftentimes" just makes me shiver with annoyance. Fortunately I've not noticed it over here yet. John, London

28. "Eatery." To use a prevalent phrase, oh my gaad! Alastair, Maidstone (now in Athens OH)

29. I'm a Brit living in New York. The one that always gets me is the American need to use the word bi-weekly when fortnightly would suffice just fine. Ami Grewal, New York

[Actually, the proper word is "semi-weekly".]

30. I hate "alternate" for alternative. I don't like this as they are two distinct words, both have distinct meanings and it's useful to have both. Using alternate for alternative deprives us of a word. Catherine, London

31. "Hike" a price. Does that mean people who do that are hikers? No, hikers are ramblers! M Holloway, Accrington

32. "Going forward?" If I do I shall collide with my keyboard. Ric Allen, Matlock

33. I hate the word "deliverable". Used by management consultants for something that they will "deliver" instead of a report. Joseph Wall, Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire

34. The most annoying Americanism is "a million and a half" when it is clearly one and a half million! A million and a half is 1,000,000.5 where one and a half million is 1,500,000. Gordon Brown, Coventry

35. "Reach out to" when the correct word is "ask". For example: "I will reach out to Kevin and let you know if that timing is convenient". Reach out? Is Kevin stuck in quicksand? Is he teetering on the edge of a cliff? Can't we just ask him? Nerina, London

36. Surely the most irritating is, "You do the math." Math? It's maths. Michael Zealey, London

[Yup. The English use too many letters anyway. ~Cantara]

37. I hate the fact that I now have to order a "regular Americano". What ever happened to a medium sized coffee? Marcus Edwards, Hurst Green

[Take that up with Starbucks, s'il vous plait. ~Cantara]

38. My worst horror is "expiration", as in "expiration date". Whatever happened to expiry? Christina Vakomies, London"

39. My favourite one was where Americans claimed their family were "Scotch-Irish". This of course it totally inaccurate, as even if it were possible, it would be "Scots" not "Scotch", which as I pointed out is a drink. James, Somerset

40.I am increasingly hearing the phrase "That'll learn you." The English (and more correct) version [has always been] "That'll teach you." What a ridiculous phrase! Tabitha, London

41. I really hate the phrase: "Where's it at?" This is not more efficient or informative than "Where is it?" It just sounds grotesque and is immensely irritating. Adam, London

42. "Period" instead of full stop. Stuart Oliver, Sunderland

43. My pet hate is "winningest", used in the context "Michael Schumacher is the winningest driver of all time". I can feel the rage rising even using it here. Gayle, Nottingham

44. My brother now uses the term "season" for a TV series. Hideous. D Henderson, Edinburgh

45. Having an "issue" instead of a "problem". John, Leicester

46. I hear more and more people pronouncing the letter Z as "zee". Not happy about it! Ross, London

[It is "zee", limpwrist. ~Cantara]

47. To "medal" instead of to win a medal. Sets my teeth on edge with a vengeance. Helen, Martock, Somerset

48. "I got it for free" is a pet hate. You got it "free" not "for free". You don't get something cheap and say you got it "for cheap" do you? Mark Jones, Plymouth

49. "Turn that off already." Oh dear. Darren, Munich

[And keep your paws of my lovely yiddishims! ~Cantara]

50. "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less" has to be the worst. Opposite meaning of what they're trying to say. Jonathan, Birmingham

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796

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The French Connection

2011-08-02T11:28:00.006-04:00

[Alejandro Rey as Frog One]

Why does the DSK rape case in New York remind me of one of my favorite films?

"He’d kill us if he got the chance."

2011-07-30T10:29:00.000-04:00

[Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest in The Conversation]

A recent, presumably "damning" telephone exchange overheard between a well-publicized rape accuser and an out-of-state prisoner is putting me in mind of the phrase used in Francis Ford Coppola's shamefully underrated classic, The Conversation. Read the title of this posting. Then read it again.

When Margaret Atwood Becomes Queen...

2011-07-25T09:17:00.012-04:00

[Nominated by popular poll to be "Queen of Canada"]

Margaret Atwood has always been at the cutting edge as a writer and as a celebrity. She invented a device that allowed her to sign books abroad from her Toronto based home. She did that for her novel Oryx and Crake, which is largely considered one of the finest science fiction novels published in the last couple decades. Add in the awards and near-universal respect and you have one of the best known and celebrated authors of our times. So one would think that if Margaret Atwood sent a communication asking city council to revisit their plan to close some of Toronto’s 99 libraries a councilperson would at least take pause to say something tactful in response. Not to mention maybe listening to her.

CBCNews reports that something contrary to such logic is in fact what happened when Atwood’s plea arrived in Toronto’s City Council. Councilman Doug Ford has dismissed Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood’s attempts to save the Toronto Public Library system from future budget cuts:

“If she walked by me, I wouldn’t have a clue who she is,” Ford was quoted as saying on Tuesday, referring to one of the most celebrated literary personalities in the country.

Later on he added a bit of advice for Atwood, should she want to find her audience:

Ford said if Atwood ran for office and got elected, then he would “sit down and listen to her.”

What’s important to note in this story, besides the level of anti-intellectualism achieved by Councilman Doug Ford, is that this is exactly the kind of heedless and uninformed decision-making involved in library cuts. Never mind the famous author, who perhaps you could harness for library fundraising purposes, and instead go headlong into reducing community services that could potentially provide help to the unemployed and marginally employed in those communities.

—Dennis Loy Johnson

Source: http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/?p=35058

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Freedom from Want by Carlos Bulosan

2011-07-04T06:42:00.002-04:00

[Carlos Bulosan, American, 1911-1956]

So long as the fruit of our labor is denied us, so long will want manifest itself in a world of slaves.

If you want to know what we are, look upon the farms or upon the hard pavements of the city. You usually see us working or waiting for work, and you think you know us, but our outward guise is more deceptive than our history.

Our history has many strands of fear and hope that snarl and converge at several points in time and space. We clear the forest and the mountains of the land. We cross the river and the wind. We harness wild beast and living steel. We celebrate labor, wisdom, peace of the soul.

When our crops are burned or plowed under, we are angry and confused. Sometimes we ask if this is the real America. Sometimes we watch our long shadows and doubt the future. But we have learned to emulate our ideals from these trials. We know there were men who came and stayed to build America. We know they came because there is something in America that they needed, and which needed them.

We march on, though sometimes strange moods fill our children. Our march toward security and peace is the march of freedom—the freedom that we should like to become a living part of. It is the dignity of the individual to live in a society of free men, where the spirit of understanding and belief exists; of understanding that all men, whatever their color, race, religion or estate, should be given equal opportunity to serve themselves and each other according to their needs and abilities.

But we are not really free unless we use what we produce. So long as the fruit of our labor is denied us, so long will want manifest itself in a world of slaves.

It is only when we have plenty to eat—plenty of everything— that we begin to understand what freedom means. To us, freedom is not an intangible thing. When we have enough to eat, then we are healthy enough to enjoy what we eat. Then we have the time and ability to read and think and discuss things. Then we are not merely living but also becoming a creative part of life. It is only then that we become a growing part of democracy.

We do not take democracy for granted. We feel it grow in our working together—many millions of us working toward a common purpose. If it took us several decades of sacrifice to arrive at this faith, it is because it took us that long to know what part of America is ours.

Our faith has been shaken many times, and now it is put to question. Our faith is a living thing, and it can be crippled or chained. It can be killed by denying us enough food or clothing, by blasting away our personalities and keeping us in constant fear. Unless we are properly prepared the powers of darkness will have good reason to catch us unaware and trample our lives.

The totalitarian nations hate democracy. They hate us, because we ask for a definite guaranty of freedom of religion, freedom of expresson and freedom from fear and want. Our challenge to tyranny is the depth of our faith in a democracy worth defending, although they spread lies about us, the way of life we cherish is not dead. The American dream is only hidden away, and it will push its way up and grow again.

We have moved down the years steadily toward the practice of democracy. We become animate in the growth of Kansas wheat or in the ring of Mississippi rain. We tremble in the strong winds of the Great Lakes. We cut timbers in Oregon just as the wild flowers blossom in Maine. We are multitudes in Pennsylvania mines, in Alaskan canneries. We are millions from Puget Sound to Florida. In violent factories, crowded tenements, teeming cities. Our numbers increase as the war revolves into years and increases hunger, disease, death and fear.

Even when we see our children suffer humiliations, we cannot believe that America has no more place for us. We realize that what is wrong is not in our system of government, but in the ideals which were blasted away by a materialistic age.

But sometimes we wonder if we are really a part of America. We recognize the main springs of American democracy in our right to form unions and bargain through them collectively, our opportunity to sell our products at reasonable prices, and the privilege of our children to attend schools where they learn the truth about the world in which they live. We also recognize the forces which have been trying to falsify American history—the forces which drive away many Americans to a corner of compromise with those who would distort the ideals of men that died for freedom.

Sometimes we walk across the land looking for something to hold on to. We cannot believe that the resources of this country are exhausted. Even when we see our children suffer humiliations, we cannot believe that America has no more place for us. We realize that what is wrong is not in our system of government, but in the ideals which were blasted away by a materialistic age. We know that we can truly find and identify ourselves with a living tradition if we walk proudly in familiar streets. It is a great honor to walk on the American earth.

If you want to know what we are, look at the men reading books, searching in the dark pages of history for the lost word, the key to the mystery of the living peace. We are factory hands, field hands, mill hands, searching, building and molding structures. We are doctors, scientists, chemists discovering and eliminating disease, hunger and antagonism. We are soldiers, Navy men, citizens, guarding the imperishable dreams of our fathers to live in freedom. We are the living dream of dead men. We are the living spirit of free men.

Everywhere we are on the march, passing through darkness into a sphere of economic peace. When we have the freedom to think and discuss things without fear, when peace and security are assured, when the futures of our children are ensured—then we have resurrected and cultivated the early beginnings of democracy. And America lives and becomes a growing part of our aspirations again.

We have been marching for the last one hundred and fifty years. We sacrifice our individual liberties, and sometimes we fail and suffer. Sometimes we divide into separate groups and our methods conflict, though we all aim at one common goal. The significant thing is that we march on without turning back. What we want is peace not violence, We know that we thrive and prosper only in peace.

We are bleeding where clubs are smashing heads, where bayonets are gleaming. We are fighting where the bullet is crashing upon armorless citizens, where the tear gas is choking unprotected children. Under the lynch trees, amidst hysterical mobs. Where the prisoner is beaten to confess a crime he did not commit. Where the honest man is hanged because he told the truth.

We are the sufferers who suffer for natural love of man for another man, who commemorate the humanities of every man. We are the creators of abundance.

We are the desires of anonymous men. We are the subways of suffering, the well of indignities. We are the living testament of a flowering race.

But our march to freedom is not complete unless want is annihilated. The America we hope to see is not merely a physical but also a spiritual and intellectual world. We are the mirror of what America is. If America wants us to be living and free, then we must be living and free. If we fail, then America fails.

What do we want? We want complete security and peace. We want to share the promise and fruits of American life. We want to be free from fear and hunger.

If you want to know what we are—We are Marching!

Originally published in The Saturday Evening Post, 6 March 1943

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Seattle Mystery Bookshop Fights the Good Fight Against Amazon

2011-06-24T12:51:00.019-04:00

This week, we received a copy of a new book from an author who was interested in coming in to sign. [And if you want to read about one big-name "Amazon" author they've also rejected, go here.] The problem is that the book is from the new Amazon mystery imprint. They're making an agressive move into publishing and have lined up a list of new and known authors. The authors are understandably eager and excited and they have a hard time understanding when they run into our brick wall of NO. We start with my original message of explanation, then his reply and my return message. In the interest of everyone getting a better understanding of the issues and our point, here is the exchange ~ JB Dickey

Tuesday, June 21, 10:30 AM To: The Author

Sorry to say that we cannot offer you a signing. We cannot do anything to support, help or benefit Amazon. They're the enemy of independent bookshops and aiding them in any way—mainly ordering their books and selling them and promoting them—would be suicide. Things are tough enough without cutting our own throats. ~JB Dickey, Owner

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 5:49 PM To: staff@seattlemystery.com

Dear JB, I understand your concerns. But please know that the opposite is happening nationwide. Amazon is reaching out to independents everywhere and offering to send hundreds of thousands of Amazon emails promoting an individual bookstore. Happily sending Amazon customers to independents. The results have been spectacular. Hundreds have been showing up at these events. It is a tremendous show of support for the independents.

I know it seems counter-intuitive. Amazon is easy to demonize. But I've seen the result of their work with independents. And it is impressive. They wouldn't be putting in this kind of effort if they were out to cut your throat. My little book tour is not about to make or break Amazon. I truly believe that Amazon wants both the independents and the online stores to thrive. If I didn't believe that I would not have signed with them.

And as an author with a bestselling book from a conventional NY publisher, I can attest to the new life Amazon is breathing into books. Whereas an event might bring in the same ten or twelve people, now we are seeing many times that amount. New customers who then tell others about the event and about the bookstores. It has been great for everyone, especially the bookstores.

I know your mind is set, and I do not expect my email to change it. But I do want you to know that my experience with Amazon as an author has been second to none. They are incredibly supportive and responsive and beyond author-friendly. They flew me to NY for a book signing at BEA, something unheard of for a first-time author in my genre. And the list goes on.

If I can do anything to help your bookstore please let me know. And if you want to talk more about this or anything else book-related please call me at 555-555-1212. The author I am touring with is an English professor at University State X, and I know he feels as strongly as I do about the survival of the independents.

Sincerely, The Author

6/22/11, 10:56 AM To: The Author

What you say is all well and good but you're looking at it from your perspective.

From my perspective, this is a huge corporation that has not only taken massive amounts of sales away from me over the years but also sales reps (which means the attention of publishers) and has waged a price war with the NYC publishers over their ebooks. Remember when they removed ALL St. Martin's titles from their site in retaliation for St. Martin's insisting that they no longer undercut the price structure for e-books that the others were observing? Remember, too, that Amazon is the company that reached into the private devices of individuals and deleted ebooks (one of our very good/long time customers is a computer worker and had downloaded a technical book from Amazon and make copious notes in her reader—Amazon deleted the 'book' and she lost all of her notes/ and then they also deleted—what was it, 1984?—from people's e-readers). And let's not forget that they appeared to buckle to outside pressure to remove gay and lesbian fiction and, when caught, blamed technical problems, not mendacity. I cannot tolerate censorship of any kind or by anyone. If these people are not intentionally evil, they come damn close to it by their actions and policies.

You want me to buy books from them? Pay them money to continue their efforts and to have books in my joint that clearly say "Amazon", to give them free advertisement as well?

If they're like NYC publishers, they'd demand that I open an account with them. That means giving them my personal info (this shop is a sole-proprietorship), tax numbers and bank accounts and, probably, the account information from three other businesses (either publishers and/or wholesalers) as references.

Sorry—not a chance in hell I'd give all of that to Amazon. I do not trust them.

Even if I were to consider it, I haven't heard enough about their policies: what is the discount structure? are returns allowed and in what time frame? are they selling the same book at a discount that I can't/won't match or are they selling the books at the same price as I would?

I don't doubt that they're doing good things for you authors. It is fully within their interest to do so. First of all, they're launching a mystery/crime imprint and want to do all they can to promote it and its authors. Secondly, they want you to promote it and talk about it and to have more authors want to sign with them and to make more and more sales. I would bet that the intent is to take more and more business away from the major publishers who are very good at letting sales slip through their fingers.

Neither of us will change our minds. I'm the owner of the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan. You are working for Mr. Potter. And Mr. Potter is always buying.

No one else may share my views. We're all doggedly independent. It might be that I'm extra-sensitive about Amazon since they started here. If it works for others and you, great. But it is not for me. ~ JB Dickey

For more comments, go here.

Source: http://seattlemysteryblog.typepad.com/seattle_mystery/2011/06/cant-shake-the-devils-hand-and-say-youre-only-kidding.html

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The Passing Glory of The New York Review of Books

2011-06-22T10:06:00.006-04:00

I faithfully read The New York Review of Books in the 70s and even got a response to my fan letter to Elizabeth Hardwick when I was nineteen, quite a thrill. The NYRB is mentioned in chapter two of My Watergate Summer.

A. Whitney Ellsworth [not to be confused with the famous comic book editor of Superman or Jim Beaver’s character in Deadwood], was one of the founders of The New York Review of Books, and its publisher for nearly 25 years. On Saturday at his home in Salisbury, Conneticut he died of pancreatic cancer. He was 75.

According to a New York Times obituary by William Grimes, Ellsworth was “a frustrated young editor at The Atlantic Monthly in the early 1960s when he began dreaming of a new kind of literary publication, in the spirit of British publications like The New Statesman, in which top-quality authors would be invited to contribute essay-like reviews of serious books.”

As Grimes details,

His dream was aided in December 1962, when a printers’ strike against New York’s main newspapers offered an unforeseen opportunity to start exactly the sort of journal Mr. Ellsworth had in mind.

The book editors Jason and Barbara Epstein had begun talking about the need for a new book review with Elizabeth Hardwick, the writer and critic; her husband, the poet Robert Lowell; and Robert B. Silvers, an editor at Harper’s. Recognizing that a newspaper strike would deprive book publishers of their New York advertising outlets, the cabal pounced. With financial backing from Mr. Lowell and a few of his wealthy friends, notably Blair Clark and Brooke Astor, an experimental issue of The New York Review of Books appeared in February 1963. A few weeks later, Mr Epstein invited Mr Ellsworth to his apartment and offered him not an editorial position, which he had been lobbying for—those slots were all filled—but the job of publisher.

“Without much thought, and certainly not questioning the position offered, I accepted,” Mr. Ellsworth wrote in a private memoir, adding that he occasionally regretted not working as an editor, but that “the glory of the Review trumps the regret.”

—Dennis Loy Johnson

Source: http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/?p=33498

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McLuhan: “The present is the enemy.”

2011-06-20T09:32:00.009-04:00

["You know nothing of my work!"]

In an exchange during a late 60s talk show on CBC called The Summer Way, Marshall McLuhan debated Norman Mailer over the future of technology in which Mailer comes off as the level-headed one. Still, why can't people debate like this anymore?

McLuhan: We live in a time when we have put a man-made satellite environment around the planet. The planet is no longer nature. It’s no longer the external world. It’s now the content of an artwork. Nature has ceased to exist.

Mailer: Well, I think you’re anticipating a century, perhaps.

McLuhan: But when you put a man-made environment around the planet, you have in a sense abolished nature. Nature from now on has to be programmed.

Mailer: Marshall, I think you’re begging a few tremendously serious questions. One of them is that we have not yet put a man-made environment around this planet, totally. We have not abolished nature yet. We may be in the process of abolishing nature forever.

McLuhan: The environment is not visible. It’s information. It’s electronic.

Mailer: Well, nonetheless, nature still exhibits manifestations which defy all methods of collecting information and data. For example, an earthquake may occur, or a tidal wave may come in, or a hurricane may strike. And the information will lag critically behind our ability to control it.

McLuhan: The experience of that event, that disaster, is felt everywhere at once, under a single dateline.

Mailer: But that’s not the same thing as controlling nature, dominating nature, or superseding nature. It’s far from that. Nature still does exist as a protagonist on this planet.

McLuhan: Oh, yes, but it’s like our Victorian mechanical environment. It’s a rear-view mirror image. Every age creates as a utopian image a nostalgic rear-view mirror image of itself, which puts it thoroughly out of touch with the present. The present is the enemy.

Source: http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2011.07-media-divine-inspiration/1/

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The Last Word for Writers on the MacMaster Affair

2011-06-17T12:14:00.037-04:00

[David Berreby]

Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage is one of the most famous novels ever written about combat, in general and in the American Civil War, where the book is set. Yet Crane, who was born six years after that war ended, had never seen combat when he wrote the story. This understandably irritated a number of actual veterans. One, Alexander McClurg, a brigadier general in the Union Army, published a long letter of protest, calling the book "the vain imaginings of a young man born long since that war, a piece of intended realism based entirely on unreality." But at least Crane knew where the lines were drawn: His work was fiction, and hundreds of years of literary convention told his readers how to separate his work from reality. That's not the case for Tom MacMaster, a presumably straight married man who lives in Scotland.

Like many a novelist before him, he invented a person—Amina Abdallah Araf, a Syrian-American lesbian blogging from Syria—but as MacMaster gave weight and character to her voice over five years, he neglected to tell readers that she wasn't real. He also neglected to tell a genuine lesbian in Canada with whom he corresponded as Amina. And he didn't mention it to Paula Brooks, whose lesbian news site helped him set up Amina's high-profile blog, supposedly written in Damascus. (Poetic justice: Paula Brooks, as the Washington Post reported, also turns out to be a man.) And the blogosphere has no conventions for fiction—no equivalent of framing devices like "I found these papers in a trunk" or "Marlow told me this tale on board a freighter," with which a literary work both claims to be true and signals that it is fiction.

MacMaster is, among other things, clearly a frustrated novelist. He's written a couple of novels, he told the Washington Post, and he talked about Amina in a way recognizable to any writer of fiction whose character is getting out of control: "I was going to end the story with having her be free, and get out of country—end of story. I didn’t expect the story to get so big .... I’ve been feeling for a while that it had gotten too big." He made Amina a lesbian, he said, in part for the writing challenge.

Now, McMaster is also, to judge by his responses to the brouhaha, a self-righteous prig and a vicious fraud, so good at deception that he seems to have fooled himself too (how else to make sense of his claims that he hasn't harmed anyone and has done the Arab Spring a good turn by presenting important issues to Western readers?). However, he is right about one thing. What he did is often considered harmless, when it yields forms of writing with which we're familiar, like novels, stories, plays and screenplays. What was exceptional about MacMaster's hoax isn't that he made stuff up. It's that he did it on a blog.

Because MacMaster's "piece of intended realism based entirely on unreality" was created in a new medium, his audience didn't have the hard bright lines that told them what was imaginary and what was not. This has happened before, when art met new technology. In 1938, for example, Orson Welles' radio-play version of The War of the Worlds left thousands of people with the vexing conviction that they were about to be vaporized by a Martian invasion. The conventions that would tell a listener this was fake radio news did not yet exist, and the warnings that Welles and his cohort had improvised weren't adequate.

Then, too, Shakespeare's plays are filled with reminders that the action is taking place "within this wooden O," where "all the glisters is not gold," and women disguised as men are actually boy actors. To modern readers this seems arch and clever and meta, but I think in Shakespeare's time it had a practical purpose: He was teaching his audience what the boundaries were in the newfangled entertainment technology called professional theater. He was giving them markers by which they could tell what was art, so they could avoid embarrassing themselves by, say, running a sword through the actor playing Shylock or Othello. (According to a critic, even centuries later, in 1902, there were problems with theatergoers confusing invention and reality: "Frequently I have seen a well-acted villain cursed and threatened by some one in the gallery carried away by his feelings," he wrote.)

Blogs do not yet have the literary conventions that allow a writer to layer one meaning upon another. Yes, blogging convention favors a style that sounds knowing and arch, but don't be fooled. Whatever its style, as a form of writing, blogging is more earnest and naive than The Cat in the Hat. Compared to the depths of meaning in a play or movie or TV show, or a book, in fact, blogs are flat and shadowless. In a blog, I am either straightforwardly what I say I am, or I mark that I am extremely not-straightforward by using something like this :} or this <#IsntThatSpecial?>. That's about the only string on the instrument, folks. To paraphrase André Gide, as a medium for writing, blogs are a piano without pedals.

And given that this is what we expect, we who consume blogs have developed no sophistication as readers: We aren't skeptical or wary or alert to the pleasures of a writing that only seems real. We aren't like the ideal reader of a meta-novel like Tristram Shandy, or the ideal playgoer who heard King Lear's Fool make a prophesy and then add: "This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time." Instead, the ideal reader of blogs is a literary cretin. And this cretinousness made us (yes, us, I joined that damn Facebook group) easily fooled by an artful dodger.

Which, come to think of it, may form the basis for a defense of teaching literature in the 21st century of "how will this class help me get a job?" education. If you don't teach people how to read literature they'll read with the expectation that writing is perfectly transparent, sincere and utilitarian. And when you read that naively, you're an easy mark for frauds and liars.

—David Berreby

Source: http://bigthink.com/blogs/Mind-Matters

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Happy Bloomsday!

2011-06-16T19:57:00.004-04:00

[Fantasy map of Bloom's journey]

This year, the 107th Bloomsday, holds particular significance for Joyce fans since it falls on Thursday, the same day Ulysses takes place. This is also the year that the novel falls into public domain.