My succinct version: "I apparently have nothing better to do".
We vote with our eyes--or our minds--about how we'll spend our (alas)
finite time. If, at the end of the day, we're nourished by what we've
exposed ourselves to, or done for ourselves, fine. If not, then we
know we'd better make personal changes.
Oddly, in this day of electronic junk food of every description, book
clubs are growing and sustaining themselves. This isn't just about
reading. It's also about tackling with other human beings issues these
books raise--the intellectual give and take that in itself is deeply
nourishing on several levels. The regular posters on FRIAM find this
forum nourishing, and irregular posters, like me, feel it's worth our
while to lurk, sometimes to participate.
I don't despair.
On Mar 21, 2013, at 3:50 PM, Steve Smith <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Pamela -
I'm going to assume the "Patricia" Steve mentions is me. Ten
published books. Four of them novels. You write because you must. I
feel blessed to be able to do what I love to do.
Absolutely... my apologies... I should have turned my brain over at
least one more time on that one. I *feared* was misnaming you! I
did a scan of my e-mail contacts and of course found no "Patricia
McCorduck" and should have trusted my instincts. And of course, just
as we are many of us too flitter-brained to read more than a few
words at a time, some of us are also unable/unwilling to focus
properly on what we write (thus some portion of the *wrong* connected
to the *lofty* and *long*). Thanks for speaking up...
I understand that "Writers Write" and I am thankful for that. In
Glen's vernacular, that (Writing) would be your Twitch I suppose?
What I'm mostly addressing is that even those of us who have been the
most avid readers of such writing in the past have undermined
ourselves with a new texture of stimuli that feeds (some of) the same
needs. I fear, however, that it is the
white-sugar/white-flour/grain-alcohol of the intellect and emotion...
and it does not serve us.
Like most authors, I'm always saddened to hear that literature
doesn't speak "any more" to a certain group of people, but that's
the way it is. I could argue that the numbers it ever spoke to were
always small, so what's new. But my missionary work is past, so no
arguments from me.
I am not arguing that the work embodied in good
writing/literature/novels is not worthy, but sadly that many of us
are allowing our palates to go to pot, as it were. We are reading
headlines, bumper stickers and tweets where we perhaps once read
paragraphs. We are reading summaries and abstracts where we once
read short stories and articles. We are reading Cliff's notes, the
abridged version or "watching the movie" where we once read the
novel. I am far from reveling in this collapse of attention span
from the epic tales ( I recently toiled through the Illiad, but alas
by listening on audio) to the soundbite, the catchy phrase, the
tweet! But it seems widespread.
I hope that this in fact, as i mentioned last posting, can come full
circle and the storytellers don't all get buried or brushed aside in
favor of the "twitch emoters" (again to adopt/adapt something of
Glen's terms) or the tweeterers or the YouTube creators.
I occasionally (surprise) get the response from folks "TLDR", an
acronym for "Too Long, Didn't Read".... and while I know it is a
highly motivated response (for I am lengthy and perhaps tedious and
pedantic to some), I believe that some of this is in the eye of the
beholder. TLDR (as an acronym) can be a self-admission to having
given up one's ability to attend to more than a phrase or a sentence
or two before rotoring on to "the next thing"?
Please *do* continue to write, and maybe even a few of us will shake
off our twitching stupor, find our fingerprint-smeared and dusty
readers and read your work, cover to cover.
- Steve
Pamela
On Mar 21, 2013, at 2:58 PM, Steve Smith <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Glen -
Unfortunately I fear you are correct. *I* have probably *written*
at least one Novel's worth (a Michener or King's worth?) right here
on the FRIAM list, yet you don't see me buckling down to publish my
own next to Doug's. And in fact, I think Doug will acknowledge
that even *he* wouldn't (couldn't) write his novel today... it was
enough focus just to dig it out, re-asciify it, reformat it, edit,
dust, clean, etc. enough to publish as an e-book on Amazon.
Patricia (and other published fiction authors here???) might have
another perspective of course!
I don't play video games for 6 hour stints, even though I came of
age along with Pong, then Asteroids, Pac Man, Battlezone, and
Missile Command. I do occasionally fall into a hole dug by Tetris
on my iPhone, however.
But I *rarely* read a novel anymore. I was, as you were, was
trained on such... but the last 22 years (if you read my last
post) have slowly eroded that. 22 years ago I had a TV connected
to a VCR in a cabinet with doors, and I might have indulged in a
movie once every week or two... maybe two during a weekend. I
rarely even turned the tube on, and then only to maybe catch a
local weather forecast.
*Even* I didn't have a *laptop* until about 1998 and while I spent
at least half my time at work in front of a computer, I spent
almost no time at home on a computer and the other half of my work
time arm-wrestling (other) idiots in meetings or crawling around
fishing cables under raised floors or dropped ceilings. Today I
spend (to this list's chagrin) 4-16 hours a day (350/365 days) in
front of this (or one or another) damned machine either
reading/writing e-mail, surfing the web (for very important stuff),
writing proposals, writing code, (occasionally) writing invoices,
building 3d models for proposals or for specifying physical parts
of systems, or streaming a movie or ...
I'm lucky to pull my face out
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3j9jpBez8g>(2:14) of this machine
for any significant amount of time, it is only because I maintain
something of a "homesteader's lifestyle" that requires me to chop
wood, carry water, repair a dumptruck/tractor/trailer haul my own
trash away, etc. I still spend *several* hours a week arm
wrestling (other) idiots in meetings but half of them are on Skype!
Someone needs to design a haptic-interface (and mediation
protocols?) for a USB attached device to facilitate arm wresting
over the wire proper? Rob Shaw's (also on this list?) brother
(Chris) was involved in a startup 15 years ago (Haptek?) that was
designing pneumatic haptic "suits" for martial arts games,
unfortunately it didn't make it to the market. They got distracted
with People Putty <http://www.haptek.com/> (and more)...
I *am* working with the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) to
try to help them develop/teach *immersive* storytelling in their
Digital Dome <http://www.myiaiaonline.com/digitaldome/> but I fear,
even with full 360 surround environments and full motion tracking,
storytelling is losing something, unless it can somehow transcend
and come full circle. For those lucky enough to experience Robert
Mirabal's live performance (Po'Pay Speaks
<http://indianpueblo.org/mirabal/>), you might know that there is
always hope for such!
We (most of us) are of a generation that preceded all this, I can
only imagine what it has been like for the current generation of
children who were born *after* Al Gore invented the Internet and
the rest of us invented the rest of it. I only see MiniVans and
SUVs on the highway with 2.6 (or is it 1.8) kids in the back seat
with 2 video screens (one on the back of each parent's
seat/headrest with either a movie or maybe a video game (or web
browser) running. I have quoted Jerry Mander with "Shoot your
Television". Obviously that was not enough, my computer snuck in
and filled it's niche to bursting!
Off to a face-to-face meeting that will actually require walking
around outside waving our arms (Hi Jane) !
I've gotta stop this Twitch!
- Steve
Steve Smith wrote at 03/21/2013 10:24 AM:
I'll see your "King's Men" and raise you a"Stone Junction"
<http://books.google.com/books/about/Stone_Junction.html?id=woneSCNLbrYC> by
Jim Dodge
Ordered!
When Glen writes his "great american novel" (surely to be also an
alchemical potboiler, a digital noir happening, an outlaw epic?) all his
(published on paper or internet, indexed by Google) forgotten influences
and sources will be exposed. His Twitch will be a folding of the
origami paper, or perhaps a pull of the taffy.
Unfortunately, I think the novel is dead as a format for story telling.
It may return if peak oil or a zombie apocalypse obtains. But overall,
I think it's efficacy is dwindling rapidly. I still like them because
that's the way I was trained. But I find them increasingly difficult to
read ... the surrounding people, devices, and non-fiction books with
good indices draw my attention away from novels. I'll play a video game
for 6 hours. But I won't read a novel for 6 hours. Even when I do
manage to read for a long time, it sparks ideas that I have to write
down or pause to look something up in another book. I am no longer
linear ... or even first order continuous.
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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