I suddenly find myself wrapped up in a project that could very well become a book. I can’t say too much about it yet, but it’s an exploration the spot where I think we’re stuck as a civilization. The basic idea came to me on July 2, and since then I’ve been working like a mad man, researching and taking notes.

It’s exciting, to say the least! I never thought I would get to this point. Apparently self-publishing the collection of early works, Seeking the Upward Spiral, helped me move to the next level. It must have provided adequate closure to a very dark four-year period in my life.

So now, onward and upward! You may see an occasional post from me, if I have some news to share. And who knows, maybe I’ll post updates on my progress. In the interim, please keep an eye on Supraterranean. We really need submissions! Also, did you see the new Thumpme blog? If not, have a lookie!

On May 28, WBUR’s program “Here and Now” aired a segment about Wagner’s opera “The Ring” and its influence on comic books. (I’d embed it here, but they don’t let you download the MP3. You can listen at the link. Just scroll down the page when you get there.) Apparently many characters from graphic novels of the 20th century were shaped by Wagner’s four-part work.

This seemed relevant to me for a variety of reasons. I’m currently obsessed with Wonder Showzen, a heady spoof of Sesame Street that came from the Brooklyn group PFFR before they made Xavier: Renegade Angel. In one episode of Wonder Showzen, a child journalist goes around asking people, “What’s a hero?” The goal was to point out that we may be tricked (by movies, news and other media) into thinking that Superman or Iron Man or 9/11 firefighters are going to “save us.”

I’ll try not to wander too much here. It’ll suffice to say that I’ve become very interested in the topic of “heroes.” I wanted to write about this “Here and Now” show because I just finished the book Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson. Wilson first published the revised version of his psychology PhD dissertation in 1983. Chapter 17 in the book — entitled “Quantum Evolution — contains a discussion about the modern symphony orchestra interpreted through the book The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler.

The coincidence of the radio show and my reading the book seemed to be a synchronicity (also mentioned in Wilson’s book), a Jungian concept meaning “an acausal and/or holistic principle in nature that acts outside the linear past-present-future of Newtonian time” (p. 152). But I’m straying again…

Wilson brings up Toffler to explain the quickening pace of “domesticated primate evolution” — that is, the ongoing development of human beings. According to Toffler’s model, the “First Wave” was a shift from tribal to “feudal-agricultural” societies. The Second Wave came in the mid to late 19th century, and was a shift from a feudal-agricultural system to an “industrial-urban-market economy.” That can also be described as the “Age of Reason” or the “Industrial Age.”

Now we’re in a sort of transitional period as the Third Wave passes through and creates the Information Age (many other potential titles have been proposed). As Wilson explains, “Each wave is faster, by a factor of 10, than the previous wave. And each wave is more total in that it changes more people…and in the process transforms our concept of human nature and human society” (p. 255).

This section turns out to be highly prophetic in what it says about the effect of computers on society.

Toffler does not claim that the computer is the whole of the Third Wave, but merely that it is the synecdoche or paradigm of what is happening. In this sense, the factory was the synecdoche of the Second Wave. It was not merely the agent by which ‘indust-reality’ spread across the world and multiplied our collective wealth (and illth); it also became the model for everything else (p. 256).

You might be wondering about Toffler’s term “indust-reality.” Essentially it means the mass reality tunnel that has been prevalent during the Industrial Age. In effect, “…’indust-reailty,’ the reality of the industrial age, moved everybody into the robot lockstep of the factory system” (p. 256).

This brings us back to the idea of the symphony orchestra:

‘Indust-reality’ is still so pervasive that it is…mostly invisible. For instance, the feudal age never progressed beyond chamber music—trios, quartets, etc. The modern symphony, with its huge orchestra, its Promethean themes, its god-like conductor (‘capitalist’), its concert-master (foreman), its string section moving in harmony with its brass section, etc. is a beautiful artistic expression of modes of mass human organization appearing usually in less beautiful forms in the factory assembly-line. (The factory also demanded cities—massive concentrations of labor in one place—which made the symphony economically possible…) (pp. 256-257).

Now to synthesize this information. The music of Wagner is wholly representative of the Second Wave, the Industrial Age, the Age of Reason — the military-industrial-capitalist complex that has dominated our civilization for the last 150 years. This point needs no further proof than the scene in Apocalypse Now when Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (played by Robert Duvall) blasts Wagner as his fleet of helicopters takes a Vietnamese town by storm.

As I said before, Wagner’s music also contributed to superhero characters and their stories. And we are likely duped into thinking that the problems facing mankind will be resolved by some benevolent source of power. But the most powerful role in “indust-reality” is the capitalist — i.e., whoever has the most money. Wilson recognized this as well, and he thought “it was inevitable in a domesticated primate species”:

Neither capitalist indust-reality nor socialist indust-reality have been able to give humanity what most of us really want: liberty and justice, freedom and the abolition of poverty, continued growth and continued security. [...] The Third Wave can, and will, transcend this problem within industrialism. [...] It will demand a whole new economy… (p. 257).

So as you can see, I think it’s a little humorous that “Here and Now” is celebrating the performance of Wagner’s opera. “Indust-reality” is becoming more irrelevant by the day, as computers and related technology help us bridge into the next phase of our evolution.

The most interesting news I’ve heard lately on the topic of custom publishing came last month from Mashable.com. As Jolie O’Dell reports, you can now create and print a custom book using content from Wikipedia. Just click “Create a book” in Wikipedia’s left sidebar (under “print/export”), and then click “Start book creator.”

The video below explains the whole process, but it’s actually really simple. And I learned a lot about navigating Wikipedia that I didn’t know before. Once you’ve started adding pages to your book, there’s even a suggestion engine that recommends more relevant content for your project. Books are printed by PediaPress and the cost is based on number of pages. In the example, the book of 212 pages will cost $12.48, and they’ll ship in the U.S. for about $3. Not bad!

Honestly this is an amazing tool and I can’t wait to use it myself. One question left unanswered by the demo video is whether you can create an e-book with the same Book Creator, and whether or not that would cost money.

Actually I just tried out the process myself and realized that there is a Download box on the Manage Your Book page. That gives you the option of downloading either a PDF or TXT file… FOR FREE! It took about 30 seconds to compile and download, and the finished product is quite impressive! My test e-book is called “Sex Ed 402: Advanced Techniques.” Hope you enjoy! (NOTE: for mature readers only.)

Now for a little discussion. This is a fascinating development from Wikipedia, the site that hopes to create a compendium of all human knowledge that is openly accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. This makes the information even more accessible, since these custom books and e-books can be used offline at the reader’s convenience. I’m SO GLAD that they offer the free e-book option, since tablet computers and e-readers are booming right now. And the file even comes loaded with a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license!

The demo shows someone making a book for a Caribbean sailing trip. But think how quick and easy it would be to create a book about a recent news topic. Wikipedia is increasingly becoming a source for in-depth coverage of complicated news developments. I could easily make a custom book about the BP oil spill, for example, and include the entire story plus background on British Petroleum, the oil industry, off-shore drilling, clean-up efforts, previous disasters, etc. Then I could distribute that book on my independent news website with a Creative Commons license. Many people would prefer that to endless Google News searches or waiting for a preferred news outlet to present a more complete story — instead of just watching the webcam of oil spilling into the water ad infinitum.

One thing to think about is that PediaPress lets you put your name as editor and a photo from Wikipedia on the cover of the book. That custom book is also stored in their system in case you want to print the same book again. The e-book download, on the other hand, only let’s you put a title and subtitle on the cover. And once you disable the Wikipedia’s book creator, your project is deleted.

Try it out yourself and see how it feels to be a publisher!

I feel like everything I’ve been working on is suddenly coming together with a new clarity. On March 18 NPR ran an excellent interview with Tom Burrell, who worked in the advertising industry for 40 years and just published a book called Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority.

I find Burrell’s story to be so interesting because he worked much of his adult life on the other side of the smoke screen, without even realizing the harm his industry inflicts on society. The other reason I want to read the book is that it seems to be parallel with The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan’s landmark 1963 book in the modern feminist quest. What I mean is that the brainwashing of and about African Americans is likely very similar to the brainwashing that contributed (or still contributes, depending on your opinion) to the feminine mystique.

Burrell explains that, in our materialistic society — especially to those who are struggling financially — the only apparent path to status and recognition is to buy stuff. This phenomena is worsened by the way popular culture depicts wealthy African Americans only as MTV stars and professional athletes. It sounds stereotypical to suggest that an ethnic group could share a common desire for Escalades and mansions — but that’s the intent of the ones doing the brainwashing, so it must be addressed. As one caller says, her son assumed that their dentist would be white, because “if he was going to be black he’d be a rapper or basketball player.”

You can listen to the interview with this embedded player. My post continues below.

Later, in response to a caller, Burrell says “what that brainwashing does is gets you to a point of being so insensitive — or desensitized, that you become unconscious of what is going into your head, what you’re seeing and what you’re hearing. You also become a party to the brainwashing, or black people become a party to the brainwashing. But that’s the nature of brainwashing. You join in and become your own victimizer.”

Neal Conan points out that the Cosby Show was a notable example of black people being portrayed in a positive light — which is exactly what I was thinking as I listened. I used to love the Cosby Show, partly because the Huxtables seemed to be a healthier, more balanced, and more well-rounded family than most that I knew in suburban Detroit (most of whom were white). Just the fact that the dad was a doctor and the mom was a lawyer seemed cool to me. That kind of thing was so uncommon, for any ethnicity. But Bill Cosby was in charge of that show’s production, and he clearly had his priorities straight.

Probably my favorite part of the interview is when Burrell discusses the way black people have taken ownership of the “n word.” He claims that using the word gives black people a false sense of empowerment, since they’re actually contributing to the problem. Every time the word is uttered by anyone, it furthers the desensitization.

Burrell says we have to “turn those images around” in mass media, and Brainwashed reportedly describes ways that can be accomplished. One idea relates to creating your own media using a personal computer, which is pretty much equivalent to one suggestion in my essay “Indecision Over Michigan“! Of course, I was talking about the broader effects of TV addiction, not just racial brainwashing.

The website for Burrell’s book, stopthebrainwash.com, features an interesting intro video as well as updates on his work. There’s also an excerpt from Brainwashed on NPR.org.

I did enjoy learning about the Zeitoun family though. Abdulrahman Zeitoun is a Syrian American man who settled in New Orleans after about a decade of living and working at sea. A friend introduced him to his wife Kathy, a Louisiana native who was raised Southern Baptist but had converted to Islam on her own. Kathy has a son from a previous marriage, and she and Zeitoun (as everyone calls Abdulrahman) have three daughters together. In my opinion, Eggers’s focus on this quintessential “American” family is the strongest aspect of the book. The result was that I learned more about Islam than I had ever known before.

It was especially interesting to see why Kathy converted. Her best friend Yuko (a Japanese American) first made the switch from Christianity to Islam, and eventually it began to make sense to Kathy as well.

“[Kathy] had no idea, for instance, that the Qur’an was filled with the same people as the Bible – Moses, Mary, Abraham, Pharaoh, even Jesus. She hadn’t known that Muslims consider the Qur’an the fourth book of God to His messengers, after the Old Testament…the Psalms…and the New Testament. The fact that Islam acknowledged these books was revelatory for her. The fact that the Qur’an repeatedly reaches out to the other, related faiths, knocked her flat” (p. 71).

“She was frustrated that she hadn’t known any of this, that she’d been blind to the faith of a billion or so people. How could she not know these things?” (p. 76)

I felt just as frustrated! That part about the Qur’an being the fourth book of God was news to me, and I’m sure it would be to most Americans practicing (or raised under) some denomination of Christianity. It’s even more odd when I recall that I went to high school with Muslim students, and at one point they even gave a short presentation to classes to encourage mutual understanding and tolerance (not that there were many outward displays of bigotry at the suburban Detroit school).

Kathy learned that Mohammad wasn’t the Islamic god (he was just a messenger), Qur’an simply means “Recitation,” and Muslims are just as different as the various types of people who identify as Christians. Meanwhile her Southern Baptist preacher scolded the congregation for not giving more money at collection time. And when Kathy spoke to him about how she was considering a conversion to Islam, the preacher said she was being tempted by the devil. Later at church, he brought her on stage and publicly humiliated her over the issue. That was Kathy’s breaking point.

“This man, preaching to a thousand impressionable and trusting parishioners, didn’t know, or didn’t care, that Islam, Judaism, and Christianity were not-so-distantly related branches of the same monotheistic, Abrahamic faith. And to dismiss all of Islam with a playground sound? Kathy could not be part of what that man was preaching” (p. 76).

Kathy was also tiring of the Southern Baptist claim to ultimate knowledge. She sought something more humble and noble.

“The various doubts of the imams* were comforting, and drew her closer. [...] She liked Islam’s sense of personal responsibility, its bent toward social justice. Most of all, though, she liked the sense of dignity and purity embodied by the Muslim women she knew” (pp. 76-77). (*An imam is an Islamic religious leader)

All of this sounded refreshing amid the recent flashes of fundamentalist Islam and Christianity — the former in the Middle East and the latter in the U.S. But I soon saw that, like the other monotheistic religions, even liberal Islam is susceptible to irrationality and blatantly reliant on a personified God.

Consistently throughout the book, Zeitoun and Kathy thank God, pray to God, and abandon their reason to the wisdom of God. Zeitoun stays in New Orleans during and after Katrina in part because he feels that God wants him to be there to help the people (and dogs) in need. But in a way, it was a justification for his own stubbornness, not wanting to leave his property, not wanting to be stuck with four displaced females, not wanting to miss an opportunity to live up to his famous older brother (the brother was a decorated ocean swimmer in Syria, who later died in a car accident).

Never do they admit the chaos, randomness and coincidence that dominate every aspect of the story. The individual has no control whatsoever, but at the same time no one is in charge. Yes, Zeitoun did good things, but he almost ended up dead (or close to it — I won’t give away that part!).

There are a few other points from the book I’d like to discuss, but those will have to wait until a future post.

The second reason is more complex, but it relates to my skepticism over the value of contemporary publishing. I’m sure there’s a long catalog of works that try to explain the reasons for the degraded efficacy of modern literature: people watch too much TV and movies, play too many video games, aren’t educated enough, or are tasteless, unrefined cretins. That’s without even mentioning the publishing industry’s concerns over lagging profits. Of course, the assumption there is that the publishers deserved whatever success they had enjoyed up until recent times.

My opinion is quite different. Media is media; corporations are corporations; profit is profit; greed is greed. From a top-down perspective, book publishers are no different than the people who sell movies, shows, or albums. That publishing model undermines the very mission behind literature: to teach, to open minds, to ask important questions, to unveil fears and insecurities — all in all, to push mankind forward.

Now I’m approaching one of the founding concepts behind Supraterranean: to reinvent the way publishing is done. I don’t expect the site to accomplish that goal on its own, just to state it “for the record,” and to contribute to the evolution that is far overdue. And as e-readers begin to proliferate the market, we all have a duty to try and stop the content industry from controlling what people can access on those devices. If it all ends up being subscription-based stuff filtered through a semblance of the Internet, we might as well throw those tablets in the trash.

At the very least, I want Supraterranean to be a resource to ensure that anyone who wants to present their creative work to the public can do so. My biggest issue with the industry (by which I’m referring mostly to companies who publish books and literary journals for for money) is that it’s founded on the concept of authoritarian control. And, at least with the biggest publishers, the goal is not to identify and support the best writers or books; it’s to find and mold the books that can produce the biggest dividends, that book clubs and academics alike will gush over, that can skyrocket to a bestsellers list after being displayed (courtesy of massive payola) at the front of every mega-bookstore in America.

This is really no different than the way I feel about the major labels of the music industry, and (to a lesser exdegree, in terms of anger) about the big film studios. (I’ve ranted about the music industry many times on my MusicEdge Blog, most notably in this comment reply from April ’08. For more thoughts on the book industry, have a look at this Refractor Blog post about literary agents from about a year ago.)

* * *

Now that I’ve vented, re-read what I wrote so far, and had two glasses of wine, I realize that I haven’t even begun to discuss what I had originally planned. Here’s the story. In August 2009 I read the New York Times Sunday Book Review of Zeitoun, a nonfiction book written by Dave Eggers about a single family’s tribulations as Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in late August 2005. I had never read anything by Dave Eggers, but I quickly gathered that he is one of the most well-known writers working today. I was more intrigued after learning that his own company, McSweeny’s, published the book. Perhaps, I thought, an independent publishing venture would allow a much more vivid, more experimental, more truthful account of what actually happened down there. Back when it happened, I was admittedly oblivious to the news reports, and I felt it was time that I learned more about it.

However, if I were to rate the book, I’d probably give it about a 3 out of 5. I’ve come to hate ratings, but here’s it appropriate — since I agree with those who gave it that rating on Amazon.com. Follow this link to see a three-star review by “exBFF,” who calls it a “great first draft.” I think that’s dead on. The comment author also points out the heavy, recurring use of foreshadowing — another keen observation.

I can’t think of a more appropriate word for the book than “mainstream.” And clearly the book is selling well, since it’s it’s been sold out everywhere since Christmas, until mid-February at the soonest. There were some redeeming qualities to the book, despite the fact that I didn’t learn all that much about Katrina, and the story itself wasn’t very captivating. But I’ve crossed my 600-word limit, so I’ll have to get to that tomorrow.

I think the take-home point of this post is that I am trying to expose myself to new literature, partly because I want to be more involved in the “literary scene.” It’s just a long, hard process, and I haven’t had any sort of writing or lit/comp class since 12th grade, so I have no guide here. I’m skeptical about whether the Editors can find and support all the talented writers, and I’m convinced that a good amount of worthwhile writing goes totally unpublished. I think one way the Internet will help is to find the right audience for a certain book or writer, instead of forcing every author to aspire to the tastes of the literary status quo. That’s not so unreasonable a hope, is it?

As one critic put it (I forget which one or where I saw it), Soderbergh seemed to be avoiding any of Guevara’s common stereotypes (i.e. – political activist, guerrilla warrior, t-shirt imagery). It did seem that Soderbergh wanted to let the story speak for itself. But 41 years after Che’s death, one wonders if a film should be made at all if it doesn’t dare to take a position on the controversial figure. This is, after all, an extremely important figure in recent history that most American students are taught nothing about (or at least I wasn’t).

According to Wikipedia, Jean-Paul Sartre once “described him as ‘not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age’ and the ‘era’s most perfect man.’ Sartre would also compliment Che Guevara by professing that ‘he lived his words, spoke his own actions and his story and the story of the world ran parallel.’”

The film does provide at least a basic context for why these people were attempting a revolution in Latin America. Therefore my strongest criticism relates to the lack of insight into Che’s mind. I was surprised to see that the films were based on Guevara’s own writings: Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (Part 1) and The Bolivian Diary (Part 2). Knowing this, I wondered why Che’s thoughts were only revealed during an interview with a journalist that is scattered throughout Part 1. One of Che’s statements stands out from the rest:

“Of course, defeating imperialism is impossible if you don’t recognize its source is the United States of America. In a capitalist system, people live in an invisible cage. For example, they accept the myth of the self-made man. But they do not understand that opportunities for the majority are determined by forces completely beyond individual control.”

The journalist then asks the question, “What is the most important quality for a revolutionary to possess?”

Che responds, “A true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love — love of humanity, justice, and truth. It’s impossible to conceive of an authentic revolutionary without this one quality.”

The paradoxical nature of this statement set off my skeptic alarm. How could a person with great love of humanity seek to change the world through armed conflict? In other words, how could anyone using their rational faculties hope to improve mankind by shooting people with guns? A six-year-old would be able to tell you that that’s not a path to success. It was equally confusing to me that Jean-Paul Sartre would condone this armed conflict. After reading Nausea, I got the impression that Sartre’s existential problems were individual in nature and required an autonomous process of treatment. It’s almost as if Sartre didn’t understand his own philosophy, and that has caused me to lose faith in his writing.

Luckily I have the work of Carl Jung to fill the gap. I finally finished reading, Man and His Symbols, edited and co-written by Jung. The chapter by M.-L. von Franz entitled “The Process of Individuation” directly addresses my problem with Che Guevara, evident in the following quotes:

“Fanatical political activity…seems somehow incompatible with individuation” (p. 241).

“…The unconscious is pointing to the fact that today the dreamer should not try, as X did long ago, to free his country in an outer way. Now, the dream says, liberation is accomplished by the anima (by the dreamer’s soul), who accomplishes it by bringing the images of the unconscious to life” (p. 244).

“…In our time genuine liberation can start only with a psychological transformation. To what end does one liberate one’s country if afterward there is no meaningful goal of life — no goal for which it is worthwhile to be free? If man no longer finds any meaning in his life, it makes no difference whether he wastes away under a communist or a capitalist regime. Only if he can use his freedom to create something meaningful is it relevant that he should be free. That is why the inner meaning of life is more important to the individual than anything else, and why the process of individuation must be given priority. [...] …If a single individual devotes himself to individuation, he frequently has a positive contagious effect on the people around him” (p. 245).

In the film, Che’s character spoke of building a meaningful life through a communist revolution. But if the film succeeded at anything, it demonstrated the blatant absurdity of Che’s quest. The only thing armed conflict leads to is more death, more destruction, and more tyranny. When Fidel Castro took power of Cuba, he abolished elections in order to remain in power until modern day! Down in Bolivia, Che was executed by a common soldier in a dirty shed, when he could have rejoined his wife and children in Mexico or Cuba. And perhaps worst of all, American imperialism never ended.

It seems that we as a society are far overdue in studying the suggestions of Jung and his colleagues. The only revolution that will ever work is one of individual psychology. But if it could happen on a widespread level, it would change the world. A recent quote by President Obama (albeit in a different context) reflects this idea:

“One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world.”

If our president’s expression of such a profound concept isn’t optimistic enough for you, perhaps (in observation of today’s public funeral) I should also reference Michael Jackson. His song “Man in the Mirror” even has the basic principle down — a fun fact I realized a few years ago when I started getting into literature and philosophy.

I’ll have more on this topic soon. I’ve finally begun a large-scale essay on Jungian Psychology and the need for modern man to learn himself before trying to change anything external. In the meantime, I can’t make any promises about consistent activity on here, but I’ll try my best. I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post. I’m truly sorry for that — times have been tough.

1. Religion and churches are all man-made entities
2. Ethics and morals are independent from faith and cannot arise from it
3. Religion is both amoral and immoral

Hitchens then runs through many true examples of the pitfalls of religion before branching into discussions of metaphysics and philosophy. I’ll share with you some of my favorite sections. Hitchens tears the Mormon religion limb from limb, asserting that 25,000 (twenty-five thousand) words in the Book of Mormon were copied directly from the Old Testament of the Holy Bible. An additional 2,000 words were taken from the New Testament. And yet Joseph Smith supposedly transcribed the text from golden plates delivered from God by an angel. Given that Mormonism is one of the largest religions to be created in America, it’s a shame that Hitchens doesn’t discuss the joke that is Scientology (I think I’ll save my own comments on that subject for another blog post).

My other favorite section explains the Catholic Church’s friendly treatment of Hitler’s Nazi regime. At one time, the Papacy even celebrated Hitler’s birthday. Then after WWII, the Vatican used its power to provide passports and funding for Nazi leaders to flee to South America. But these two examples are merely the most humorous, and not nearly representative of all the evil that religion has caused on earth.

Naturally, a book like this would be lacking without any mention of psychology and literature. Hitchens does reference Freud on a few occasions. Freud said that religion cannot free human beings of their fear of death. Likewise, Freud apparently said that religion is inevitable until mankind stops fearing death and breaks its tendency for wishful thinking, neither of which is extremely probable. Hitchens claims that “philosophy steps in where religion fails, just as science and medicine for alchemy, and astronomy for astrology.” But his main suggestion for deriving moral behavior without religion is essentially to obey karma. Hitchens suggests that the saying “treat others as you would wish to be treated” can be taught to children and requires no violence, massacres, or sadistic behavior.

Hitchens is one of the most knowledgeable people I’ve ever come across. The extent of his intellect makes itself clear throughout the book. The book succeeds most at explaining all the disgusting behavior that religion has promoted and allowed. But obviously any one book isn’t going to convince the world that all current religions are outdated and irrelevant (as Bill Hicks would often say). Still, Hitchens says that a new enlightenment is necessary. He condones “the study of literature and poetry for its own sake and for the greater good of mankind.” He also commends the unrestricted pursuit of scientific discovery and the utilization of widespread information on the Internet.

And that, of course, is why I write on this blog.

In Gessner’s words: “Consider that our first great national literary flowering constituted, in part, a rebellion against what was thought of as academic, effete and indoors-y in English writing.” A lot of his worries mirror my own. I often find myself wondering, is it possible to fulfill my drive to write without banishing myself to the wilderness? Can someone balance career obligations with creative impulses? Are security and benefits worth sacrificing an artistic lifestyle that is both consistent and unbridled?

“Something is lost by living the divided life,” wrote Gessner. “Intensity perhaps. The ability to focus hard and long on big, ambitious projects. A great writer, after all, must travel daily to a mental subcontinent, must rip into the work, experiencing the exertion of it, the anxiety of it and, once in a blue moon, the glory of it.” The job provides a “safety net,” some social activity, and (in the professor case) summers off for writing. But the job also means less adventurous writing, and less time for reading and creating. The author seems inconclusive until the end of the article, when he suggests that he wouldn’t miss teaching as much as he misses the writing life.

Once I finished reading, I went on the web to research the author. In some ways he seems to be a nature writer — but that’s an oversimplification. For example, I read on Amazon that his book A Wild, Rank Place: One Year on Cape Cod starts with the nature focus, but also covers family drama, battles with cancer, and drug use.

That wide array of topics presented through a condensed lens seems like exactly the type of thing that I’d like to do in the future. For the first time, I feel as though I’ve possibly found a writing mentor who is still alive. Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to enroll at UNC Wilmington where he teaches. I’ll just have to communicate with him another way. (UPDATE 12/9/08: I emailed David Gessner and he recommended his book Sick of Nature, since it contains discussions about these types of difficult decisions).

Below: A video of David Gessner giving a guest “lecture” on transformation in literature.

Link:
David Gessner’s Website

Recently I realized  that it would be very difficult to write consistently on here about fiction and philosophy. Not only would it be exhausting, but I’m just not sure that I have those kind of resources. For this post, I turn to a sort of nonfiction reference book. I caught wind of Sin & Syntax by Constance Hale on a trip to the MSU Computer Store circa Spring 2007. A girl working at the counter set the book down to assist me, and I couldn’t help reading the cover when she went into the store room.

I found the book used on Amazon and started reading. For someone who hasn’t had an English class since 2001, this was a hefty undertaking. This feeling was increased since, on more than one occasion, I disagreed with her suggestions. For example, she seems to prefer third-person writing to first-person without question.

“In today’s culture of confession, many writers prefer the first-person point of view. Unabashed subjectivity may be fine for ever-popular memoirs on incest and inside-the-Beltway intrigue, but the third-person point of view remains the standard in news reporting and writing that aims to inform, because it keeps the focus off the writer and on the subject” (p. 36).

She’s correct about focus, but some of the greatest literature — especially in American history — has been told from the first-person view: The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, The Sun Also Rises, etc. Plus (as if I haven’t already made this clear), the authors that got me to write were all using first-person: Kerouac, Thompson, Miller. I would even go so far as to suggest that third-person writing is a way of hiding behind other characters, instead of facing the story head-on. Or maybe I just can’t understand the concept of omnipotence, or pretending to know what dozens of characters are thinking and feeling, let alone saying out loud.

Hale progresses through three parts: Words, Sentences, and Music. Each subsection (i.e. – Nouns) features both Cardinal Sins (what to avoid at all costs) and Carnal Pleasures (what to work hard at developing). One of her Cardinal Sins is the way that journalism copy editors remove interjections (short words or phrases intended for strong effect more than meaning), leaving the writing stale and sterilized.

How she omits Kerouac — one of the most poetic prose writers of all time, who infused jazz into his words in amazing ways — from the Music section is beyond me. But regardless of my opposition, the book is still worth reading.