Pretty Good vs. Great and Hopefully More Sellable Writing

I have been frustrated with my fiction writing for quite some time and recently wrote about the Fearless Act of Writing in another blog post. A few weeks ago I was reading an article in The Writer titled "Create Your Own MFA in 5 Steps" by Rachel Eddey. I have repeatedly thought about applying for a masters of fine arts program in creative writing because I enjoy academic settings, would like the time to focus exclusively on my writing, might enjoy teaching writing which an MFA in writing would qualify me to do, etc. However, the cost of taking an MFA program causes me to pause. Also I have concern over the idea of MFA programs because while it gives the student a chance to focus on the writing and make contacts and has many other benefits, it is no guarantee of being published and there is no promise that a teaching job will be available at the end of the course.

I liked the way that Eddey in her article presented the idea of creating a program of self study so I began working on my own writing self study program. It includes the following components:

1. I write daily. Sometimes it is only a post on this blog. Sometimes it is only poetry. Sometimes it is a character study. It does not matter. The point of this is to just get comfortable and in the habit of writing something daily.

2. I read. I have been reading and studying a novel by Graham Greene titled "The Heart of the Matter." Greene was a master and as I am reading I am both enjoying the book and analyzing his methods of characterization, subtext, and scene setting. I have also been reading short stories and last month one of my writing groups discussed two short stories to identify what made them work. One was by Nancy Kress titled "Act One." I learned a great deal from reading and thinking about "Act One."

3. I specifically read books on writing, consider elements of fiction, and study various aspects of how to construct a good piece of writing beyond mere mechanics.

Today a friend of mine posted on a forum that I belong to a link to a post titled "Pretty Good v. Great--and Sellable" written by Carrie Vaughn. In this post she discusses that she believes that three areas that a writer must engage with to make the fiction better are: structure, voice, and having something to say. I agree with her that these things are important elements and Vaughn's blog post made me stop and consider what I think of these elements.

In regards to structure, I have been struggling with ideas of plot. I have been studying the hero's journey and considering the 3 act structure. I have been thinking about questions to ask myself to make all the plot elements in a story fit together in the best possible way to concisely relay the story and have the structure add to the meaning of a story. For instance, a story can be unfurled in a chronological order or it can be done in a series of flashbacks. A story can be told from the first person point of view or from the deep third person. Either of these decisions make a difference in how the plot elements will fit together. I also think that stories where the plot unfolds very naturally from the decisions that the characters within the story make makes the story feel more effortless and anytime that a story is a struggle the reader is pulled out of the story and this diminishes the story.

What Vaughn in her blog post calls "voice", I call word choice. I think some writers do have their own distinctive voice and this can be cool. Roald Dahl always sounds like Roald Dahl. I see word choice as making every word count and be the right word-- true to conjuring the feel of the story, adding to the subtext, relaying a character's voice, etc. I drive myself nuts with this. Words are relative to one another and this fascinates me.

I have debated with other writers about whether or not it is a good idea to have a theme in mind when writing a story so that the theme will come out. I don't think it is a good idea to preach on a soap box. I do think that ambiguity and having many possible views on a theme is a good thing. I try to include a relevant idea/commentary in the stories that I write that does come through. I think stories that make an impact and are remembered are those that risk stating a position and also let the reader think through the aspects of it for themselves. That may seem contradictory, but I think that it is possible to entertain people by challenging them with ideas and letting them think things through for themselves. The very act of putting the relevant sides of an issue with some depth in a story is presenting a theme.

I will continue to think on writing and will probably post some of my ideas from time to time. Both Eddey's article in the February issue of The Writer and Vaughn's blog post at: http://www.genreality.net/pretty-good-v-great-and-sellable are worth checking out just for stimulating thoughts.

Author Interview with Nerine Dorman

Nerine Dorman is an author from Cape Town, South Africa who is a rising star. She creates scintillating paranormal novels, erotica, and good reads with not only a supernatural element but a South African flavor. I had a chance to interview her and she was generous to offer the following responses:

1. When did you start writing? How many novels have you written? What are their titles?

I first started stringing words together for my pleasure when I was about twelve or thirteen. I just remember being extremely bored in a geography lesson the one day. I’d been reading a lot of Anne McCaffrey at the time, so was very much inspired to write a SF epic of Pernese proportions. I only stopped writing for a short while between the ages of nineteen and twenty-six, because I realised I hadn’t lived enough. But even this time wasn’t a complete loss because I embarked on a series of twenty-something misadventures that provided valuable fodder for my later writing. I’m a thug at heart, which is probably a throw-back of my ancient Scandinavian ancestors a few hundred years ago. During my early twenties I did write a lot of magazine articles for an assortment of publications, so I’ve had a broad range of experience with research and writing.

The first novel was Khepera Rising, a bit of a fluke since not only was it the first novel I ever wrote but it was the first I ever sold. After that came Khepera Redeemed then Tainted Love (erotic romance writing as Therése von Willegen).

There are a few “lost” novels between these, one of which is a YA urban fantasy I’m possibly still revising, pending my feelings about the work when I’m done with some of my current projects.

I’ve two releases this year, an urban fantasy novella entitled The Namaqualand Book of the Dead, and another erotic romance, Hell’s Music.

My two WiPs are on the go, so I’m quite happy to say the floodgates are bust and the words are flowing. I don’t think I lack for ideas. I certainly don’t have enough time to write all the ideas stored on my hard drive.

2. When you look at your past work, what thoughts do you have? How has your writing developed?

I would have done things differently. I’ll be honest, I don’t think I had a clue what I was doing when I wrote Khepera Rising. For a debut novel it’s not bad, and I’m proud of it, but that is also largely due to having had a brilliant editor guide me after my crit partners had a good go at me. Since then I’ve learnt a lot about the craft, trying to spin tales that don’t dither or get bogged in exposition. I’ve got a few “lost” manuscripts I know I’ll never go back to that were just so flawed I’d only return to them in order to cannibalise cool characters or scenarios.

A writer knows when to let go of an idea that doesn’t work, and to apply what she’s learnt to the newer works. I’d say my writing flows much better, that there aren’t so many scenes where not a helluva lot happens. Right now I’m working to up the emotional impact of my words, and to layer scenes so the writing is more textured.

Of course it helps that, for the past five years now I’ve been employed as a sub-editor at a newspaper publisher. I’ve learnt a lot about how to self-edit based on the training I’ve received in my work environment, and also the encouragement and help from the assorted writing groups I belong to.

3. What advice would you have for people who want to be writers?

Read as many different novels as you can, outside your genre. Read the classics. Read the “how to” books by folks like Donald Maass and Stephen King. Go check out www.absolutewrite.com to see the forums there. Hang out with other writers. Write every day. Find yourself a dedicated writers’ group to work within. Revise, read, write... Don’t give up. Never be too proud to take constructive criticism. Don’t be precious over your words. I’ve fought tooth and claw to be where I am right now and I’m never satisfied to settle for second best.

4. Out of all of your characters, which one is your favorite? Why? Was it patterned after any living person?

There’s a lot of me in my protagonists. I’ll always have a special place for Jamie of the Khepera novels, just because he represents all my worst characteristics and he’s just so damn annoying. He annoys my readers as well, yet they oddly end up cheering for him. But I’m kinda nuts about my current protagonist, Ash, who was inspired by two dreams I had last year when a certain musician I’m fond of passed away. It’s all very personal but sometimes these stories hit you with all the force of a runaway road train and you just have to write them. Ash came into being when I thought of the worst possible scenario in which to drop a once-powerful being. In a way he’s a tribute to a man whose music has played a large part in my life.

5. Many of your works have a supernatural element. Which elements of the supernatural do you find fascinating? How do you conceive of new and interesting ways to incorporate these elements in your fiction?

I’ll be honest. I’m a bit obsessed with death and dying, and what happens afterward. I’ve faced death four times: twice by disease, twice by my own hand. It’s not a nice place to be and a central theme is often the continuation of consciousness after physical death. I’ve lost a lot of people close to me, the most painful being my “uncle” Shaen. I carry a lot of guilt for him in particular because I never went to see him in hospital when he was ill. I was too scared. But I went to his funeral, which offered some catharsis and laid the framework for my current work in progress, which is very much themed on death and the afterlife.

Demons and ghosts feature quite highly. I’ve had a bit of a twisted upbringing in a strict Calvinist background, so any subject that was considered taboo (the occult) has become my bread and butter. In many ways I’ve become the very thing I feared the most when I was a kid. Maybe it’s just my way of embracing that fear and becoming a whole person composed of both light and dark elements.

I love collecting other people’s stories relating to demons, ghosts and other inexplicable entities. I don’t necessarily believe in them, but I don’t discount their existence either. I’m quite happy to say “I don’t know” but hell, when I uncover these anecdotes, I start looking for ways to illustrate them in my tales.

Sometimes weird stuff happens around me but it doesn’t scare me. I see myself almost as a literary paranormal investigator at times. I embrace the unknown and the stuff that goes bump in the night.

6. How does being from South Africa inform your writing?

Write what you know. That’s my rule. Since I live in Cape Town and have travelled throughout southern Africa, this is what I write. I’ve had rejections from publishers and agents who say my writing isn’t “recognisably African” but in my mind that’s a load of absolute bollocks. I don’t have bloody elephants roaming in my home town (unless they’ve escaped from the circus, and that has happened) and I certainly don’t live in a mud hut. The closest lions to me live in a sanctuary for abused and neglected lions rescued from zoos and canned hunting breeding centres. People have this misconception that South Africa is “Africa”. It’s not. I live in a first world environment that’s coloured by its colonial roots. It’s a place where Europe, Africa and Asia have collided.

I do believe I can offer my readers a recognisable setting with exotic influences. So, while I’m not writing about any game safaris any time soon, I offer a virtual tour of my world that has socio-environmental slants you won’t find in the States or Europe. Something different, but with a touchstone of familiarity.

7. Who would you like to read your novels? Which demographic? Which individual person-- living or dead? Why?

I write the kind of stories I want to read, so anyone who’s into alternative subcultures and bohemian lifestyles will get something a little bit more up their alley. I write about people who are anything from drug dealers, to black magicians, strippers, barmen, musicians, artists, bookshop owners... Essentially the people your mother warned you to avoid.

If you like Tim Burton’s early movies, wear inordinate amounts of black and have a poster of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman somewhere on your wall, know about bands like Type O Negative and A Pale Horse Named Death, and have danced to Bauhaus’s A Passion of Lovers, or groan when the DJ spins the extended version of the Sisters’ Temple of Love, you’re going to be on familiar turf.
And for those who’ve always been fascinated by alternative subcultures, you’ll find plenty of that in my stories. I’m so sick of watered-down Hollywood representations of the goth, metal and body modification scene. I offer the real thing, because that’s where I’m at. Many of my friends are photographers, tattoo artists, burlesque girls, magicians, body piercers, strippers, musicians, performance artists, witches and indie filmmakers. I’ve hung out with rubber dolls, attended BDSM play parties, helped suspend people from meat hooks and eaten sushi off “live” platters. My life is always a little too interesting...and these interests, no matter how bizarre, reflect in what I write.

8. Do you think that being bi-lingual influences your writing? How?

I’ll let you into a secret. I’m actually an Afrikaner (South African of mingled Dutch and French descent). In fact, I don’t have a single drop of British blood flowing through my veins. The irony is that I can barely speak my mother tongue anymore. I sometimes add a little Afrikaans to my novels, but not enough to annoy people. It’s a nice little bit of colour, the same way a novel set in France or New Orleans may end up with a little French thrown in for the bargain. I have no idea what the French means but it sounds cool. Though I have an erstwhile Jewish friend who says Afrikaans sounds a bit like Yiddish...

9. How do you think a bookseller would describe your writing to someone that they were recommending it to?

I’d first find out what sort of books the person normally reads. I’ve sold books to people who read mostly crime, based purely on the fact that I can describe both my Khepera books as “occult crime thrillers” (which they are). Yet I can also peg the Khepera books as horror or urban fantasy. People who enjoy Neil Gaiman and Poppy Z Brite’s earlier works, will enjoy the books. As for my contemporary erotic romance line, these tales are so gritty compared to the usual romance fare, I’d say it’s easy for people who enjoy my “serious” genre fiction to cross over to that if they’re in the mood for something “lighter”. I’m a bit of a brat, so I’ll always find some selling point.

Nerine's novels include:
Khepera Redeemed


Khepera Rising


Tainted Love


The Namaqualand Book of the Dead



You can read more about The Namaqualand Book of the Dead: http://www.lyricalpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=81&products_id=313

Follow Nerine's blog here: http://nerinedorman.blogspot.com

Or like her Facebook author page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nerine-Dorman-author/173330419365374

Billie Holiday: Now Baby or Never

I am tired tonight and was going to write about villains.

Instead I am posting some archival footage that I found on Youtube of the incomparable Billie Holiday singing "Now Baby or Never." Another time, I will write about Ms. Holiday who knew her share of villains.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6x55IV3jZQ&feature=artist

One Person Can Make A Difference

President John F. Kennedy once said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Change always happens. Sometimes slowly and gradually. Sometimes with a violent lurch.

In Tunisia a fruit stand operator who had had his fruit stand confiscated by the police set himself on fire and started a revolution that resulted in the 23-year reign of Tunisia's strongman, 74-year-old Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, coming to an end two weeks ago.

Currently, Hosni Mubarak who has ruled Egypt since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981 is seeing his country protest his regime. A regime that has become increasingly more autocratic. Mubarak has created a virtual police state. Over the last thirty years his regime has instituted censorship of the media even going so far as to try to censor bloggers, imprisoned prominent pro-democracy activists such as Saad Eddin Ibrahim, and during the most recent protests placed 2005 Nobel Peace Prize co-winner Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei under house arrest. All this while while a younger generation of Egyptians goes hungry and without opportunity. It is not one fruit stand owner who is protesting, but many people.

I remember in 1989 when one lone man in Tiananmen Square refused to yield to a column of tanks. He stood with his plastic grocery bags and defied the military might of the Chinese government and halted the progress of the military machine. He became the symbol of one person standing up and saying that things had to change. He refused to be oppressed any longer. That image of him before the tanks is burned in my memory. He is and will always be a source of inspiration.

I think revolutions come in waves when people witness that others are standing up and fighting or protesting oppression and realize that it is possible for one man to make a difference. Then others can see that their voices can be heard and/or their influence can be felt. They can make a difference. The Chinese student protest happened in 1989. Czechoslovakia finally became a democratic nation during the non-violent Velvet Revolution of 1989 after thirty years of nonviolent protest lead by that country's citizens. P.W. Botha resigned as the president of South Africa in 1989 and Nelson Mandela was released in 1990 ending the era of Apartheid. While the dissolution of the Soviet Union began around 1985, it split into 15 separate states in 1991. Germany was reunified in 1990. The years between 1989 and 1991 were exciting and there was hope. Hope for peace and a more open world. Hope that the arms race of the cold war would be over and the nuclear arsenal would be dismantled. Hope for a more humanitarian world.

Now we have revolution in Tunisia, Egypt, and the Yemen. It is my hope that peace and a better way of life ensue for the peoples of those countries. I can only imagine that the desire to revolt is born out of anger and frustration. To take to the streets and confront tanks takes both courage and hope that something better can be obtained. It is the result of years of people not being able to be heard until they feel they have nothing to lose.

Even when the protest is non-violent, it takes courage. The concepts of nonviolent civil disobedience taught by such individuals as Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Rev. Martin Luther King do offer an alternative to violent revolution and when there is a peaceful path for revolution, a violent revolution is not necessary. But even civil disobedience is not without danger, it means risking one's life as the man who stood before the tank. It means sacrificing one way of life for something better and pouring energy into that ideal. It means going against those who are in power and resolutely, albeit peacefully, demanding change. Civil disobedience works when the participant has a belief that they can make their voice heard with enough persistence. It is the higher ground that can bring change to improve everyone's lives and do so without the hatred that sometimes comes as an aftermath of violence. And after change reconciliation and solidification of the new ideals is necessary. Violent protest and revolution comes when there is no belief that those protesting will be heard and are willing to die to effect change.

One person can make a difference whether it is a man peacefully standing in front of a tank or another committing suicide to protest the seizure of his fruit stand.

Galadriel

The last couple of weeks I have been thinking about female fantasy characters. I have been trying to remember the ones that impressed me as being strong characters. One character who comes to mind as being particularly strong is Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings. She is Arwen's grandmother and she has her own history prior to the fellowship of the ring.

In some of Tolkien's other writings, she is a rebel and banned from Valinor.

During the Second Age, when the Rings of Power were forged, Galadriel did not trust Annatar, the loremaster who taught the craft of the Rings to Celebrimbor and the other Noldor of Eregion. Galadriel was gifted with the power of telepathy and Annatar later turned out to be Sauron pretending to be an emissary from the Vala Aulë. When Sauron attacked Eregion, Galadriel was entrusted with one of the Three Rings of the Elves. Her Ring was Nenya, the Ring of Water or the Ring of Adamant. Conscious of Sauron's power and wishing to thwart it, she did not use the Ring so long as the One Ring was in his hands.

During the Third Age, when the One Ring was lost, she did put Nenya to use in making Lórien a fair refuge for the Nandor. Galadriel fought Sauron in her thoughts. Sauron wanted to see into her mind, but could not so long as he did not have the One Ring. By this time in the Third Age, Galadriel had become the most powerful of the rulers among the elves in Middle-earth, and the foremost of the remaining Exiles from Valinor.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Galadriel allowed the Fellowship to stay in Lothlórien after their escape from Moria. When she greeted the Fellowship in her tree dwelling at Caras Galadhon, she tested each to see their character and resolve. She was in turn tested when Frodo Baggins offered to give her the ring. She understood its power and its corrupting influence. She could see that it would make her "great and terrible", and recalling her own ambitions that had once brought her to Middle-earth, she refused the Ring.

Galadriel is strong not simply because she is the fairest of the elves or because her telepathy allows her to see into the thoughts and motivations of others, she is strong because she recognises power and she knows herself. She is strong because she sees the One Ring and knows what she could do with it and knows that she needs to refuse the ring for the good of everyone. Her refusal is an entirely unselfish act and one done with great wisdom. For these reasons I think she is a magnificently strong female character.

Fearless Act of Writing

Several years ago I took quite a few creative writing classes. I would write stories, take them to class, and my classmates and I would workshop the stories. I studied English language and literature. I wrote poetry and in general I felt I was learning as a writer. I even had a poem published in an academic literary journal.

A few years ago I declared that I wanted to write a novel. Friends scoffed at this which kind of angered me. I sat down and wrote a 150,000 word psychic vampire serial killer novel. Yup. You read correctly. And it was slammed out in about six weeks and it was dreadful.

I also was writing short stories at the time and started submitting to critters.org. Critters is an online writing workshop for writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. I met several really wonderful people online via critters and many of them have become very good friends. Because of these contacts and continuing to write and experiment and read and think and play with and about the writing, I feel I have learned a great deal. I have a very good sense of what goes into good fiction. Elements of plot and characterization. How to use pacing and subtext. All sorts of things.

The problem that I have now is that I know almost too much. I get great ideas for stories and novels and poems. I can imagine the elements and how I want to design the stories, but I have a very hard time just doing the writing. Sometimes I start these stories and they go no where or I get boggled trying to decide who should be the point of view character or I am not certain where to start the story, etc. Sometimes I freeze.

I have decided that writing as an art takes a certain amount of fearlessness. It's like watercolour painting. In watercolour painting a great deal of planning goes into the painting and then one builds the colours in steps, but the whole project can be over in minutes either due to completion or because the fluidity of the paint has pulled the pigments across the painting in undesirable ways. Usually when I do watercolour painting I do more than one painting at a time and if I lose a few it is no big deal. The writing takes a great deal of planning and forethought and then the writing itself takes time. I am nervous about making mistakes, wasting a good idea, and losing the time invested in the story. This is causing me to freeze up. I am nervous about even starting stories.

Recently I have been trying to do my own kind of independent MFA. I read a couple of short stories per week and I am working on reading a novel by Graham Greene. I analyze what I am reading and make notes on what the authors are doing in the composition of the stories. I am also reading books about writing. This blog has become part of the way that I write and immerse myself in words daily. I am hoping that if I keep working at this that I can get unstuck.

Who would have thought that sitting at the desk and writing would require such fearlessness?

When Tech Fails

Ugh.

I synced my phone last week and since then it has been acting badly and now won't hold a charge. It won't even get enough charge in it for me to try to reboot it and reset the settings. I went online to Apple and it will now cost me $88 and a week without my iphone to get it repaired. I took the sim card out and I am using an older phone. Hmm... perhaps if this works when my contract is up in July I won't even consider getting a fancy phone again.

I have put $1400 of repairs into my car in the last month. And now the oil light is coming on again. And I just paid $375 for Progressive auto insurance for 6 months. Walking is looking like a happy option.

I had to buy a new coffee press. I was using one that was plastic. It broke. I like the new one. It's metal and glass.

My satellite modem tried to update last week and now won't work and I got a new one today. I can not get it to work and so will spend my lunch time tomorrow trying to get the device that hasn't worked in a week to work. This time hopefully with Verizon's tech support. Oh and the replacement modem was supposed to come with directions to get it switched and there were no directions.

When the tech fails, it causes a certain level of stress because I rely on all of these things to a degree and they become background and almost extensions of me. I am thinking tonight that perhaps less tech might be a good thing. Of the tech that I have mentioned I am most happy with my french press. Life is too short for bad coffee.

In the future what do you think might be the essential daily tech everyone uses?

Johnny Clegg

Johnny Clegg is a musician from South Africa who mixes Zulu with English in the lyrics he sings and combines African music styles with various Western European music styles. He has been called the White Zulu, participated in Zulu dance competitions in the past, and uses Zulu dance steps in his stage performance.

During the Apartheid era in South Africa, Clegg and Sipho Mchunu formed the first racially mixed South African band, Juluka. Because it was illegal for racially mixed bands to perform in South Africa during the apartheid era, their first album Universal Men received no air play on the state owned SABC. With its politically explicit lyrics, it became a word-of-mouth hit.

Beyond the fact of Juluka being successful and openly celebrating African culture, which was an irritant to a political system based on racial separation, the band played lyrics which picked up on South African trade union slogans in the mid-80's, called for the release of Nelson Mandela, and proclaimed the names of three representative martyrs of the South African liberation struggle - Steve Biko, Victoria Mxenge, and Neil Aggett. As a result, Clegg and other band members were routinely arrested and concerts broken up. Despite these obstacles, Juluka toured Europe and had two platinum and five gold albums.

Here is a sampling of the music of Johnny Clegg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGS7SpI7obY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLkSLl-KjiA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iHEvxpQd8s&feature=related

Need a Dance Break

When I am having a crap day, it's time to take care of it. Dancing. I used to go dancing four nights a week. Reggae, eurobeat, rock, rap, hip-hop, metal. Didn't matter. Sometimes all that matters is moving one's hips, feeling the beat through to the core, connecting to the emotion of the music.

Coolio's Gangsta Paradise makes a sound appearance in The Green Hornet. I would put it in the top 10 rap songs of all time. It gets the hips going and carries a powerful message:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-td_dkgM0c&feature=related

And continuing with rap, I have to put some of Tupac up if I am going to talk about powerful messages. Here's Me Against the World:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cjv7hEAytU&feature=related

And Until the End of Time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7JuArhpTB8&feature=related

Rhythm and Blues group Sonia Dada has been a favorite for a long time. The vocals on Lover You Don't Treat Me No Good are amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9WH8AfakFs

I am going to wander off and listen to some Lucky Dube now. Here's a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Showf0AMk84&feature=related

The Future Part 2

I have been thinking about the future and I have some very specific predictions.

There will be self healing paint for walls and for cars and things.

There will be construction adhesive like nails or soldering bolts made from a substance like the adhesive that mollusks use to adhere to rocks.

A type of grown in incubation tanks building material that is based on a hardened but yet resilient coral-like material will be developed.

People will return to gardening when food prices go skyrocketing as climate change alters the landscape and makes regional crop production less productive.

There will be underwater and rising through and above the water business and housing developments.

A type of solar powered aircraft will be developed that can make trans-oceanic flights.

The race to keep information free or under control will continue.

The human life span will be expanded with those who can afford longevity and neural regeneration treatments creating an aristocracy.

Genetic engineering will begin with identifying fetuses with genetic anomalies, proceed to correcting the anomalies, move on to engineering zygotes to exclude genetic mutations and unwanted recessives, and lastly become a way for parents to design the child they desire.

I would like to think that in the upcoming energy crisis that a populist movement arises where people begin to use such things and ideas as geothermal heat, more solar and wind energy collection, permaculture design, etc. to create communities where each household is either independent from outside energy sources or contributes to a collective grid to power community necessities like schools, libraries, government buildings, and more.

I fear that the current energy brokers are investing resources not only into grabbing the last of the oil as we head over the hump of peak oil production into the era of dwindling fossil fuels, but also are doing research and development to identify not a new technology that will move us away from oil consumption but another type of controllable resource that can be used to generate an economic situation of supply and demand. Technology can only be contained for so long before it is replicated, but some new resource would guarantee ongoing profits.

Still thinking on all of this. More tomorrow.

The Future by Rainer Maria Rilke

I am tired this evening because it has been a long week. Rather than offer up more thoughts tonight about the future, I give you Rilke's thoughts on the future.


The Future

The future: time's excuse
to frighten us; too vast
a project, too large a morsel
for the heart's mouth.

Future, who won't wait for you?
Everyone is going there.
It suffices you to deepen
the absence that we are.

Future Predictions Part One

I have been thinking about what the future might look like for a couple days now.

In regards to resources, I think that there will continue to be disparities in what people have, how they live, and what they have available to them. But these disparities will grow. As the population of the earth grows and becomes more urbanized, space will become rare and at a premium. The wealthy with have green space and their accommodations will continue to be similar to the luxury that we have now. For the rest of the planet, there will be the working class who can afford a small space for themselves and their families, but they will fuel the economies of great and sprawling slums. People will continue to leave the rural areas looking for opportunity or because they have been driven from rural lands by international agri-business that will have a strangle hold on food production. Those in the slums will create their own economy of services and goods.

Food. Food will become the defining resource of any economy. Low quality food stuffs will be made from inedible plant matter such as grass or kelp that is processed by bioengineered bacteria. Higher quality food stuffs will be grown but the corporate agri-businesses will have monopolies on seeds and the chemicals necessary to germinate and fertilize seeds.

Education. Formal education will continue to have value at the upper echelons of society which will be more strongly stratified. At the lower levels of society formal education and credentials will have far less value than being able to do a job and having information, experience, and skills. Apprenticeships and indentured servitude to gain skills will become a growing norm.

Health care. For those who can afford the treatments their life spans will be greatly lengthened. Longevity will be the privilege of the wealthy. In a world where calories are rare and the quality of food is not as high, children will be "inoculated" with beneficial and bioengineered bacteria that will enhance the flora of their gut to make it possible to more thoroughly extract nutrients and calories. A course of carefully manipulated viruses will be given to children not only to protect them from common illnesses but to create a beneficial immune response and shield them from depression and anxiety. Genetic testing and treatment will occur while a fetus is still in the womb.

For the poor, health care will be no existent except for what treatments can be concocted as home remedies.

In the next 100 years a human being's personality, memories, and thought processes will be transferred to an electronic form. The first consciousness to be transferred will go insane without the limits of the senses that act as perceptive interfaces and after this the next breakthrough will be to find ways for the consciousness to take information from the environment and process it and to use this information to feel grounded and oriented.

Ok. Enough for tonight. I will see what I can think up for tomorrow night.

What WIll the Future Look Like?

What will the future look like?

When H.G. Wells wrote Anticipations in 1901 he predicted trains and cars would make it possible for people to live in suburbs, there would be greater sexual freedom and expression for women and men, the defeat of German militarism, and the existence of a European Union. The man who created some of the standard tropes of science fiction looked at what was before him and was able to see into the future with some degree of startling accuracy. He also predicted a few things wrong. For instance he didn't think there would be a successful aircraft until at least 1950. He was off by a couple decades. And he thought submarines would do nothing but suffocate whoever was in them.

Is it possible to look into the future now using what is evident in this time period to predict the future? Obviously there is no way to know without a time machine to travel forward along the years.

It isn't hard to seize on things predicted. One can view any number of TED talks where global warming will alter the face of the planet, the information explosion will continue and alter the way things are done and the way economies work, and medical breakthroughs will change the way humanity lives. All of this information is painted with broad strokes, what are the details that will make up people's lives?

Can we look forward and see a future? And what might that future look like for people? There will BE a future as the earth orbits the sun and the sun spins in the galaxy and the galaxy rushes away propelled by the Big Bang. But for how long will humans be an infintesimially small part of this future? And what will they be doing? How will they live? What will be of significance?

I am going to go out on an intellectual limb over the next few days and make some predictions. I don't know if I'll be right. There is no way to tell. If you want to join in in the comments, please do so.

Stay tuned.

Revolutionary Scientist: Alfred Russel Wallace

Most people have heard of Charles Darwin and "On the Origin of Species" which he wrote to put forth the ideas of evolution, natural selection, and the transmutation of species. Evolution as a concept was a radical notion because it ran counter to the idea that all species had been created immutable by the Christian god. For the time period this was a revolutionary idea.

Few people know however that the idea of the transmutation of species had been around for quite some time. It had been proposed by such scientific minds of the time as Jean Baptiste Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, Geoffroy Sainte-Hilaire, and Robert Grant among others. It was considered somewhat of a fringe idea. A radical notion. Many traveling naturalists like Alfred Russel Wallace believed in the transmutation of species.

Wallace was a self made Englishman of Scottish descent who was born in Wales. At various times he worked as a surveyor, a civil engineer, an architect, and a teacher of drawing, mapmaking, and surveying. While he was employed as a teacher he spent a great deal of time in the Leicester library where he met entomologist Henry Bates who had recently written a paper about beetles. Bates introduced Wallace to the idea of collecting and studying insects. This friendship continued for a very long time and when Wallace decided that he wanted to travel abroad as a naturalist, he and Bates traveled together to Brazil. Their plan was to collect specimens in the Amazon rainforest to sell to collectors in the UK. They also wanted to gather data to support the idea of the transmutation of species.

After of number of years traveling in South America, Wallace decided to head back to the UK. The boat that he was on caught fire and all of his specimens were lost except those that he had sent on ahead. Despite that he was able to only salvage a portion of his diaries, he wrote six scientific papers and two books. From here he made contacts with a number of prominent naturalists. The most notable of these being Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin was gravely aware that the theories behind evolution and natural selection were extraordinarily controversial. He had written a treatise on his ideas that he wrapped in paper, sealed, and put away in a closet under his stairs. It was not to be published until after his death and he had provided resources for its publication.

And then he received a correspondence from Wallace, who was now traveling in Malay and who had continued to write about the transmutation of species, outlining many of the theories that he had already written about and that were hidden under the stairs. Wallace was asking Darwin to review what he had written and if he thought it was good enough, Wallace was asking Darwin to recommend it to Sir Charles Lyell.

Lyell's belief in the immutability of species had already been shaken by a previous paper that Wallace had written. Darwin showed what Wallace had written to Joseph Hooker and to Lyell who encouraged him to publish prior to Wallace to establish being the first to think of the ideas. Darwin sent the manuscript to Charles Lyell with a letter saying "he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters ... he does not say he wishes me to publish, but I shall, of course, at once write and offer to send to any journal." After this while Darwin dealt with family issues, Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker decided to publish Wallace's essay in a joint presentation together with Darwin's unpublished writings which highlighted Darwin's priority. Wallace, who was in Malay at the time when the presentation was given to the Linnean Society, accepted everything happily-- after the fact. While having the papers presented jointly relegated Wallace to the position of "co-discover", it also associated him with Charles Darwin who was more widely known and respected. Further, Wallace was not in the same societal class as Darwin, Lyell, and Hooker. Being associated with Darwin gave Wallace access to the highest levels of the scientific community.

While Darwin and Wallace's ideas were presented together, there were some important differences. Darwin emphasised competition between individuals of the same species to survive and reproduce. Wallace thought the idea that environmental pressures on varieties and species forcing them to become adapted to their local environment was more important. Wallace discovered the so-called Wallace line that runs through Indonesia and divides the region into two distinct parts. One area has more species that are similar to the species on Australia and the other region has species similar to those of Asia. Wallace is sometimes called "the father of biogeography."

Some scholars, such as Gregory Bateson the preeminent anthropologist and cybernetician, have pointed out that another difference between the ideas of the two men is that Wallace appeared to have envisioned natural selection as a kind of feedback mechanism keeping species and varieties adapted to their environment. Wallace wrote:

"The action of this principle is exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident; and in like manner no unbalanced deficiency in the animal kingdom can ever reach any conspicuous magnitude, because it would make itself felt at the very first step, by rendering existence difficult and extinction almost sure soon to follow."

Gregory Bateson wrote that he thought Wallace had "probably said the most powerful thing that’d been said in the 19th Century". Scientist and theoreticians are still exploring the connections between natural selection and systems theory.

Wallace was intelligent, open minded, and revolutionary in his thoughts. He advocated for land reform and socialism. He opposed social Darwinism and eugenics. He was an environmentalist and a spiritualist. He supported women's suffrage and wrote about the wastefulness of militarism. He was a man ahead of his time.

Author Interview with Manda Benson

Manda Benson is a brilliant, up and coming author of science fiction and fantasy. Her new book Pilgrennon's Beacon became available through Amazon recently. I had the opportunity to interview her and she was gracious to allow me to post the interview on my blog:


1. Pilgrennon's Beacon has just come out and is available for sale on Amazon. After reading your novel, what might a reader take away from the story?

There are a lot of different aspects to the book and its three central characters, so it’s really up to the readers to read it and make up their own mind. At face value, it’s a near-future science-fiction novel with an autistic main character. It’s also a modern Pandora story that doesn’t follow the traditional protagonist vs. antagonist formula.
 
2. Who is the most compelling character in Pilgrennon's Beacon in your opinion? Did you base this character on any living person?

The people who read it from a YA angle seem to like Dana more; others usually are more interested in the motivations of the two older characters. Personally I think all of them are interesting in different ways.

Dana’s personality is in some ways based on myself and my own experiences growing up with an autistic spectrum disorder. Probably if Dana had been an average autistic child it would have been difficult for nonautistic readers to understand the character, and for Dana to understand the environment around her fully, but this is made somewhat easier by Dana’s ability to get information from computers and mentally control them that gives her an edge through an additional ‘sense’.

I really enjoy writing Ivor Pilgrennon because he’s a very different personality type from me, so it’s a challenge and it’s sort of refreshing to get inside his head and work out the sorts of things he’d say and do in various situations. He’s extraverted at the same time as being devious, and he’s the sort of person who likes to light the metaphorical touchpaper and stand back.

Jananin Blake came out as something of a fusion of the best and worst of Asperger’s syndrome. She’s a bona fide genius on one hand, and has taken on the political environment of modern academia purely on the strength of her ideas and her research, without kowtowing to funding bodies and the academic system. On the other hand, she’s intolerant and idealistic and she’s not good at dealing with people. Because of her and Ivor’s very different personalities, not to mention their antagonistic history, it’s fairly easy to get conflict into the scenes they appear in. Sparks fly even when they’re trying to co-operate.
 
3. You have stated in the past that you feel that your writing has a particularly British feel to it, what elements of your writing contribute to your describing it as such?

Most of my fiction is set in the UK or in a hypothetical future of the UK, which I’ve felt before is a disadvantage in respect of the established publishing industry, as a lot of the growth in the current market for science fiction seems to be concentrated in the USA. (I don’t know if it is or not, that’s just the impression I’ve had of it) I prefer to write about what I’m familiar with and hope readers will take an interest in something that might be a bit different too what they know.
 
4. In regards to writing in general, how many novels have you written and what are the titles? Do you have a favorite?
 
If you count 25,000 words and up as a novel, I am currently on my fifteenth. I don’t feel my earliest attempts are of sufficient quality to be worth publishing. My earliest available work is my ‘illustrated episodic novella’ HyperGolf, which appears as an ongoing serial on my website. http://tangentrine.com/hypergolf I have another novel in the same setting as HyperGolf, Financial Management and the Inflationary Universe, that I might make available at some point. After this I wrote Dark Tempest and In the Shadow of Lazarus, which are both published by Lyrical Press. Then I wrote Pilgrennon’s Beacon, Wastelander, and The Weatherman’s Niece, all of which are published by Tangentrine. More recently, I have written a novel called Moonsteed, to be published by Lyrical Press in May, and a novella in a different genre that I am hoping to sell under a pseudonym. Currently I am writing a crime/romance book and starting work on the next book in the Pilgrennon’s Children series.

My favourite of my books that I have written so far is probably the Pilgrennon’s Children series, because I think it’s my biggest idea and I really enjoyed writing the first book.

5. Where do you get the majority of your ideas for a story or novel? How long does it typically take for you to get an idea and then carry it through to completion?

Before I can have an idea for a plot, I need a setting. From the setting usually comes a character with a specific problem or situation within the premise, and from this character the plot develops. For example, with Dark Tempest the setting was an imagined future scenario where genetic polarisation had separated the human species into a genetic ruling caste and a genetic underclass. So I started to wonder what would happen if two people from opposite ends of this spectrum started having a relationship — wouldn’t this be taboo in this society? So the plot came out of that.

How long it takes depends on the individual book, and whether it’s going to be re-using a setting I’ve already used or creating a brand new one from scratch. It took a few years to get the ideas for Pilgrennon’s Beacon straight in my head to the point where I could start writing. I tend to pick up inspiration for scientific premises a lot by reading textbooks and scientific articles.
 
6. Which of your novels was the easiest for you to write and why? Which was the most difficult and why?

Probably the first novel I wrote was the easiest, because I hadn’t really developed the ability to self-criticise and I had no goals or properly defined ambitions — I just wrote what I wanted until I felt it was finished. Unfortunately the main reason it wasn’t very good was probably because I set about it in such a disorganised, undisciplined way. It was also far too long and ended up being two books.

Probably the most difficult one is the one I’m currently writing. It’s a sort of crime/romance story. Crime fiction isn’t something I’ve attempted before and I’m finding myself getting bogged down in research to do with little details, like how much money would fit in a suitcase and what would it weigh and what car would do as a getaway vehicle, and because other writing projects and matters in life have cropped up since I started writing it over a year ago and taken precedence.
 
7. Which character in your novels would you like to meet the most?

Probably Rh’Arrol from Dark Tempest. Simply because it’s an alien and it would be cool to meet an alien.
 
8. As an author, how do you think a bookseller in a store would describe your work?

’Something Different.’

Manda's Books available through Lyrical Press:
Dark Tempest
In the Shadow of Lazarus

Manda's Publishing Company is Tangentrine.

Manda's Books that can be purchased on Amazon:
Pilgrennon's Beacon
Wastelander
The Weatherman's Niece

Science Fiction Female Characters

Often in the media, female characters are the satellites to the male characters-- there as a love interest or mother and secondary. Even in predominantly chic-intended stories the story arc involves the female protagonist's growth as being a romantic one where she finds and gets the guy. The hugely successful "Eat, Pray, Love" would be an example. The main character goes through a mid-life crisis where she indulges and fills herself with mountains of Italian food, learns to pray, and then goes to Bali to hook up with the male love interest. Her finding herself means she ends up in a relationship. Science fiction as a genre offers some truly different and diverse female characters whose story arcs do not solely revolve around being the love interest or someone's mother. Here are a few examples:

While Sarah Connor is the mother to the future savior of humankind John Connor, she breaks the mold and is a character unto herself. She starts out as a damsel in distress waitress being hunted by the Terminator but evolves in the series into its true hero. Without her, John Connor would not have existed, would not have survived, and would not have had the skills necessary to defeat the machines. Sarah figured out what would be needed to save the humans and made sure John knew the things necessary. Sarah Connor's story arc is one of going from possible victim to proactive agent of change.




While it is true that most of the guys of my generation have a thing for Princess Leia based on the bikini scene where she is enslaved to Jabba Hut, I would like to point out that in response to Jabba the Hut treating her like a piece of meat she strangled him. Princess Leia does end up involved with Han Solo, but this is not central to who she is and I always thought that unless he went through major character growth she probably dumped him sometime after the celebration on the Ewok planet. Princess Leia is a risk taking part of the rebel alliance. She's proactive and in the fray. She has ideals and goals and wasn't afraid to give Darth Vader some what-for.



Dana Scully from the X-files is a career woman who was assigned originally to work with Fox Mulder to keep him in check. The two characters always have tension between them but never an out and out romance. They are a dynamic duo and she is there to offer a scientific and rational look at what is being given to them to investigate. The character also presents as open minded enough within the episodes to not immediately seize on the comfortable explanation for the unusual phenomena that the duo investigates. Dana Scully uses her intelligence and creativity to problem solve and push for the truth that Fox Mulder only intuitively knows is out there.



While she is only a secondary character in the second Alien franchise of movies titled "Aliens", Pvt. Vasquez rocks! She is tough as nails and a true heroine. She thinks and fights and out survives in horrific circumstances most of the marines sent in to battle the aliens on the colony. And she is no one's love interest or mother. Just a soldier. And she can do more chin ups than the guys.

And no list of strong science fiction female characters would be complete without resilient, resourceful, intelligent, uber-survivor-- Ellen Ripley. Ripley survives the alien on her ship as her shipmates are picked off one by one, saves the cat, and then kills the female alien. No tea and biscuits behavior. No batting her eyelashes. Just common sense and using what she had to survive.



Other science fiction female characters that are dynamite include: President Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica; Major Samantha Carter from Stargate SG-1; Donna Noble from Dr. Who; and FBI agent Erica Evans from V. All of these female characters break the mold in some ways. While there are still disappointing female characters in science fiction, the potential story arcs for female characters in science fiction is as open as the futures that we can imagine.

The Best Villains

Villains are tough.

I don't mean tough as in hard to harm or able to endure-- although many are. I mean in the sense of creating a good believable villain. A bad guy who is just bad is one dimensional and not terribly interesting. If there are no ambiguities or reasons for why the bad guy is doing what he is doing it is just random. The villain is left a caricature of bad and can come across as not as effective. His or her villainy is without motivation or passion. It is also hard to care about the hero's plight and struggle if the villain is one dimensional and appears as not a serious threat.

Consider the Wicked Witch of the West. She kidnaps Dorothy, she sets the scarecrow on fire, and she threatens to drown Toto. And those monkeys of hers are seriously scary. And she lives in a monstrous scary castle with enslaved guards. When I was a kid she and her flying monkeys terrified me. At first glance, the Wicked Witch of the West comes across as some personification of evil. She is willing to go to extreme ends to get the ruby slippers. She appears one dimensional.

But the Wicked Witch of the West is not one dimensional. Dorothy dropped a house on her sister and then Glinda the Instigator magicked the ruby slippers onto Dorothy's feet. Those slippers and whatever powers they hold are not Glinda's property. Or Dorothy's. Further, from the Wicked Witch of the West's perspective no court in the land of Oz is going to give the Wicked Witch of the West justice in the instance of Dorothy killing her sister. The Wicked Witch of the West has plenty of motivation to try to pursue Dorothy and get her sister's shoes. Gregory Maguire in his book titled "Wicked" turned the story of the Wicked Witch of the West around and considered her in a sympathetic light. The designation of villain may be more a matter of perspective.

Voldemort is another big time bad guy. He kills Harry Potter's parents and terrorizes the world of the Harry Potter books. He would have killed Harry but Harry was protected by his mother. Obviously a guy who attacks babies is pure evil. He appears at first as the one dimensional He Who Must Not Be Named.

But consider that Voldemort's humanity is taken away at every turn initially. His name is not to be spoken. He has no body. As the Harry Potter series unfolds Voldemort becomes more human both in the flesh and in terms of what is revealed about him. His campaign to control the wizarding world and the muggle world grows as his humanity grows. He becomes scarier as the reader learns of his childhood and background. He was a child wronged who had great talent, intelligence and power and he grew into an adult who wanted to control the world. Voldemort does what he does not because he is simply evil. He is pursuing his course of action from deep conviction and desire. And hurt.

One person's villain can also be another person's hero. Vengeance and hurt are only two possible motivations for a character to be a "villain". What if the "villain" is a disenfranchised group who has been excluded from resources like food? What if the villain fights the hero of the story to claim a stake out of need? Yes, the hero is being attacked, but perhaps it is out of desperation or necessity. How many times in history did not only the spoils go to the winner but the ability to claim virtue and designate oneself as the culture hero group? The Romans did this. They considered all other groups to be "barbarians'. The Romans were the heroes of their own history.

The best villains have a certain degree of ambiguity about them. If seen in the right light, there is something to sympathize with about them or what they are doing. This makes them more of a threat and more believable.

Tougher.

Why Study Other Authors' Writing or Other Artists' Work

When I was in art school, I had a professor look at one of my figure drawings. He stopped and considered it and asked me if I understand what I was doing because I was creating a quite spectacular composition. I was flabbergasted. I stammered that I was just drawing. He frowned at me and after that to pass his course I had my own individual assignment to copy two master works per week for the rest of the semester. Not only did I have to copy those drawings and paintings, I had to analyze them and understand them and be able to explain why they worked as they did.

My favorite painting is a lesser known work by Paul Gauguin titled "The White Horse." It was originally commissioned by an apothecary who refused to pay for it because the horse is not white. The horse is tones of green and peach among other colours. I have done numerous colour studies of this painting and a giclee of it is in my living room. I never tire of this painting and it continues to offer up information about colour and composition.

Recently I read the novella "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Truman Capote. The novella is inspiration. The complex character of Holly Golightly is deftly created and from her decisions the plot of the story unfolds. The writing seems effortless and accomplishes a great deal in a short space. The narrator's persona is consistent and authentic and through his eyes the truly over the top character of Holly can be seen. If Capote had written "Breakfast at Tiffany's" from the third person perspective following Holly, much of the subtlety of the story would have been lost and Holly Golightly would not have been as sympathetic of character as she is portrayed. Much of the ambiguity in the novella would have been lost as well and it would not have been as interesting.

When I read the poetry of great poets, I consider not only the words, but also the line spacing and the way this is used to influence how the poem is read and the meaning created. I think about how they are creating a poetic form with muscle from an economy of words and what choices they have made to make this successful. Poetry is about choices because not every word can be on the page to pull forth the imagery and meaning. I think about what the poet choose and what they left behind and the possible why's.

Some authors I read to revel in the turns of phrase that they create. True great authors choose their words with care so that the words build their stories and not detract. When I am reading a novel or short story, I consider if the point of view character is the best one to tell the story and if the main character is the best choice. I analyze whether or not the structure of the novel was the best way to begin the story, build tension, and if the resolution is satisfying. I notice if the writing is gripping without being melodramatic in terms of plot or purple in terms of prose or bombastic in terms of subject. Some of what is considered "literary" fiction I feel earns this title and the qualification of being quality based not on compelling writing but rather on melodrama, highly perfumed prose, or bombastically moralistic subject matter. In the past I don't think there was such a distinction between literature or literary fiction and the more general category of fiction. Further, some fiction that was written in the early twentieth century was written as popular fiction and it has stood the test of time and been canonized and accepted into the category of being literature. "Rebecca" by Daphne DuMaurier comes to mind as an example.

In my opinion, if someone is going to write or create art, they need to study the work of previous authors and artists so that they can think through for themselves what is working and what is not and why. By struggling with these issues, the would be artist or writer develops their own sensibilities. They have a place to start from to experiment in their own work and begin to develop their own skills and sensibilities. From this they can build on the past work-- reverberations that can be initiated in the mind of a reader or one appreciating their artwork created by referencing but not copying what has come before--and something truly creative, original, and unique can come about.

Artist: Do-Ho Suh

Questioning the boundaries of identity, brilliant Korean artist Do-Ho Suh creates works of art that explore the relationship between individuality, collectivity and anonymity. He plays with scale, repetition, and quantity. He was born in 1962 in Seoul, Korea. He received both his BFA and MFA from Seoul National University. After this he completed his mandatory service in the Korean military before moving to the United States and continuing his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design and Yale University. He splits his time between Seoul and New York. He has had major exhibitions at such prestigious museums as the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, the Serpentine Gallery in London, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

The sculpture pictured above is titled “Some/One.” It is an installation sculpture that occupies the entire room. The floor of the gallery room is covered with a collection of polished dog tags. Symbolizing the way an individual soldier is part of a larger military unit, the dog tags form a bodiless suit of armor at the center of the room. A soulless samurai that has come together as golem. The individuals named by the dog tags are lost in the sheer number of the tags to become anonymous parts of the whole.



Do-Ho Suh has done a number of installed floor sculpture with a sea of small figures that shoulder the burden of those walking across the floor to explore the balance between strength in numbers and the loss of identity. Many of his sculptures question aspects of identity, entitlement, and gain. Should the mighty walk upon the "little people"? Should the "unnamed masses" support those greater? Is it acceptable to sacrifice individuals to a common goal?

Poetry: Frank O'Hara's The Day Lady Died

I am tired this evening. It has been a very long day. Many people don't care for poetry. It is too obscure. Too hard to unpack. I love poetry. I love the tight economy of words like a penny pinched in the white knuckled grip of a skinflint. The value held tight and there none the less.

Much of Frank O'Hara's poetry is autobiographical. He was a prominent member of the New York School of Poetry. He held a certain disdain for poetry and believed that it should be dashed off at odd moments. He did not use rhyme, rhythm, or meter. I like the exactitude of The Day Lady Died. The details of the to the minute times of events of the day lend to recreate that specific generational memory that happens to an age cohort when something significant happens. My grandmother's generation all knew where they were and what they were doing when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. My generation will all remember with clarity where they were when they heard about the destruction of the Twin Towers on 911. For Frank O' Hara the death of Billie Holiday was this kind of event.


The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

Where Have All the Utopias Gone?

Where have all the utopian visions gone?

In the golden age of science fiction, utopias that promised flying cars and push button convenience, 3 day work weeks and robotic servants, and perfect health and equality for all were prevalent. The utopias were sometimes the backdrop that humankind reached out to the vastness of interstellar space from.

Socialism and communism as political theories and models for society to be formed from promised that everyone would be taken care of, there would be no poverty, and there would be a kinder, gentler, more egalitarian age. While socialism and communism in pure form could not produce the results promised, many people benefited from having such socialist notions as schools paid for by tax payer dollars, a standing military funded by tax payer dollars, public services like fire and police funded by tax payer dollars, a pension for elderly people paid for by tax payer dollars, and national health care systems that took the burden off private industry and helped economies flourish (oh and also made sure the citizens in those countries had health care). Because of the labor unions, better working conditions, better pay, and a standard work week came about.

The modern age was supposed to be one of continuous progress and increasing abundance. Communism and the socialist states that were part of the great experiment that came out of Marxist philosophies may not have succeeded and may have created problems, but the industrialized nations are much better off than they were 150 years ago. The standard of living for most people has greatly improved. Overall a kinder and gentler age has come about in many ways.

Where have all the utopian visions gone? Can we count Milton Friedman's faith in the free markets to cure all of societies ills? Can we count on the Right Wing Conservative Christian vision to bring about a high level of morality that will restore a golden age harkening back to some distorted remembrance of when the US was mighty? If we guard our borders with enough paranoia can we maintain paradise?

Utopia was an imaginary island envisioned by Thomas Moore in 1516 in the book of that name. A utopia is defined as an imaginary place considered to be perfect or ideal. Utopias are not real. However, in envisioning a utopia a proposed plan to solve the problems of an age can be put forth.

Humanity is currently faced with some huge problems. Are we tackling these problems? Even considering them? Are we creating a possible set of solutions that tries to offer a better future? This is the essence of a utopian vision. Ideas proceed reality. From our utopian ideas what a society values can be revealed. The ideals behind socialism were that everyone should be considered equal and everyone should be provided for. Marx wrote, "From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs." The socialist vision was a humanitarian one despite the current propaganda that would like to make socialism a dirty word. If we consider the utopian vision put forth by those who want no social services or want the free markets to run without any restriction, what values are revealed? If we consider a utopian vision of prescribed morality, who gets to say that one group's definition of morality has more authority than another? And how is this morality to be used to dictate and achieve the societal vision? If we lock ourselves away and live in fear, is this paradise?

I would rather have a utopian vision that offers hope for all of humankind--not just the rich or the Christians or those who can prove that they are natural born citizens or those only in the industrialized modern nations. I would like an idealistic vision where all of the people of the earth have their basic needs met, no one lives in fear or is exploited, and there is the realistic possibility of a good quality of life for everyone. A vision where the earth is no longer facing an environmental crisis and where the human population is stable and can be maintained by the habitat.

I haven't given up because possibly if we can create such a utopian vision we may not achieve entirely what is imagined but we may end up much better off.

New Year Audrey Hepburn Challenge

It is a new year-- 2011. And a fabulous year it will be!

Over the holiday week between Christmas and New Year's Eve I watched the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's with a friend. It is one of my all time favorite movies and we were inspired to watch it because he had read Truman Capote's brilliant novella of the same name. My friend loaned me the book that the novella is in and I can say that Truman Capote's writing is inspired. The movie and the novella are not the same and I think in many ways the novella is better. Capote's study of the character of Holly Golightly is complex and the novella has several points of tension that lead to the final climax. All of the action stems directly from the amazingly realized character of Holly. She is an enigma and reading the novella one is propelled through the story to try to understand her as she creates and responds to the self damaging situations that she puts herself into.

Despite the brilliance and depth of Capote's novella, it doesn't have Audrey Hepburn. Originally the role of Holly Golightly was to be played by Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe had a well developed sense of comedic timing and would have been good in the role. Audrey Hepburn was positively luminous. While George Peppard's acting was not as wooden as it would become in later roles, he was the straight man who falls in love with Audrey Hepburn's wild, beguiling, and vulnerable Holly Golightly. Hepburn's natural class lent her Holly a high level of charm and sophistication and she infused the character with depth. Audrey Hepburn brought style to every character that she played.

After seeing Audrey Hepburn portray Holly Golightly I was thinking about how clothing can change a person's attitude and outlook on things. When I am feeling low, I dress up. I began to think about what it would feel like to dress like Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly. I decided that I would like to experiment and try it for a week. However, currently I would not feel comfortable doing so. I need to lose a few pounds. So I have given myself the Audrey Hepburn challenge. I need to lose 20 pounds and then I get to wear clothing for a week like Holly Golightly. I'll keep you posted on how things are going. For now I will continue with my own sense of style and work on eating right and exercising.