Tuesday, May 29, 2007

My Liberal Male Guilt Complex

Earlier, tonight, which is to say, late yesterday, I talked to my sister Mary, on the phone. (Hi, Mary!) It went very well. We have a wide ranging discussion where I got to air out a lot of my problems without having to directly come out and whine about them. We kind of more shifted from casual conversation into discussing them, without explicitly stating that we were going to discuss them, like a dance, except hard to know who was leading.

I got to air many of the problems, that have been vexing me, and Mary suggested a reason for it that seemed to described exactly one of my pocket theories for my lack of direction, which I think about be called the Liberal Male Guilt Complex, or in my specific case, the Liberal White-Middle-Class-Male Guilt Complex. In brief, the basic idea behind it is that certain men in this day and age, aware of the injustices done against other groups throughout human history, feel bad about those things, do not desire to be part of the problem, and thus are going about sabotaging their ambitions. It's not that they don't want to succeed, it's that they don't feel they deserve to succeed, so they go about making sure they don't. At the same time, the revolutions in the structure of modern society that have been going on for the last couple of decades haven't come up with a new role for men in society that conforms to those changing values, which really only leaves the traditional model in place, or no model at all. Which means, of course, that men who agree with the values that have come about in the last couple of decades are left not really knowing what to do with themselves, hence the need for sabotage. Who can you succeed in society if your success hurts society? I mean, if (white) men are disproportionately and unfairly filling the job ranks, then isn't your success, if you seek it, a way of keeping the disadvantaged down? Never mind that it makes your the capitalist oppressor of the lower classes. The result is mindbending identity crisis issues. Mary's advice is to just get over it and try to succeed anyways, I think.

Women, in this New Era, are faced with a slightly different problem. It's not so much a question of not having any role to fill, its not knowing which role to fill, that of stereotypical housewife/mother, or that of go-getter. That is the "typical" male and female roles, which are impossible to perform at once which driving yourself to the point of exhaustion. Short of completely changing the way labor is performed in this country, and I think it will take a socialist revolution to change our labor paradigm this much, women are stuck making a choice that is going to cut off one of those things that society is pushing them to be. Now, they have the option of just going completely in one direction, but there will be blowback for this from some circles, no matter what they do. Of course some people manage to find jobs that allow them to fulfill all their desires, but that's usually circumstantial to the requirements of the job, and not applicable to wider society.

Oh, also, Mary was quite and constant to point out, and I agree with here, that all this is bullshit and hearsay, and I agree with her. This could be totally wrong and just based on anecdotal evidence. But still, it felt nice to hear someone else say this, someone who wasn't me. Usually, arguments of this nature come from the right, and are basically made to argue that everyone should just go back to the way things were. The left, or liberals, especially those of the identity politics crowd, tend to dismiss such arguments on the ground of there point of origin. Hearing Mary say such things gives me confidence such concerns aren't just my Inner Conservative piping up, but are, maybe, actual concerns. In fact, I think liberals ignore these things at their peril, since i think it is the fact that these problems exist might account for a certain amount of the traction that that conservative values hold in our society. It social liberalism doesn't offer people a new way to live, they won't even bother to consider that arguments about how it it is more just and stuff like that.

Anyways, another thing Mary said is that I probably need to start journaling my thoughts, to try to work through these issues that are hanging me up. Once I get them aired out, shaped into written form, it will be easier for me to observe them, put some distance between me and them. This is as good a place for that as any, I guess. So expect more complaining in the future.

Such complaints are, of course, actually related to the whole Blogging About Writing Thing, which is the actual purpose of this job, since my various mental hangups, which have gotten me stuck in my shit job, living at home, and basically feeling miserable and directionless, are also the reasons for my Not Writing, so getting over all that crap is actually instrumental to the actual purpose of this blog. What a circumlocutory path this is.

Ahoy, Mateys!

This weekend I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, twice. All through the week, I had been watching, nigh continuously, the first two movies, getting ready for the third one, and making sure that all the in-jokes, subplots, mysteries and motivations were fresh in my mind. Nevertheless, it took me two viewings to feel like I had a proper grasp on it, and I feel sure that I will go to see it again, soon.

Now, since I saw it twice, I think it is safe to say that I liked it. I thought the ending was nifty. Besides serving as a rather fitting conclusion to the series, it also leaves almost limitless potential if they decide to make any more. (Spoilers Ahoy!) All of the characters are completely separate, which means that they could be brought back in any combination.

First off, they completely wrapped up the story of a Elizabeth and Will, meaning those actors don't have to return for any possible sequels, since it could be assumed neither character runs into any of the other characters ever again. Though on the other hand, since Elizabeth is still Pirate King, and Will is Davy Jones/Charon, so it's conceivable that Jack could run into either of them at some point, go on an adventure with one, or just bump into one on the way to some other adventure. (Jack gets hauled before the Pirate Court! Jack dies and makes a deal with Will Turner to return to the land of the living!) Still, I doubt this could happen, as Knightley and Bloom are probably the two actors who desire most to move on from the movies.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Black Pearl has deserted Jack, and there seems to possibly be a mutiny dwelling, which means that they could conceivably bring back the Black Pearl, and depending on whether they can get Geoffrey Rush back or not, they can say that there has been a mutiny against him between the movies, and the crew could seek out Jack to resume his command. Or, hunt him down under Barbossa's command to regain the map.

Gibbs is hanging out at Tortuga, which means he can return, whether or not the Pearl and the rest of it's crew does.

And of course, Jack is off in a dingy, searching for the fountain of youth. Now, the series at this point basically is Captain Jack Sparrow, and—what fortuitous circumstance be this!—Depp seems to be the actor most interested in possibly returning to this world (minus the character actors, I bet, who would appreciate the work), so I think it is safe to say that any possible sequel will be based around this character's exploits. But because all the other characters are off away from him, it's quite possible for him to run into any of the characters, for any conceivable plotline. And of course, because he is last seen searching for the fountain of youth, he could easily be thrown forward in time—let's say he found it, aye?

One other thing I thought of was, I really have to give the screenwriters credit for the Davy Jones mythology. Jones serves as a pretty apt example of the nature of most devil characters in mythology. He begins as kind of lord of the underworld, ferrying souls lost at sea to the other world. Then, he gives up his role, and takes to terrorizing mankind and forcing them to make deals in exchange for their souls, either making them demons, like himself, or consigning him to the locker, or hell. Historically, most depictions of demons are based on old pagan masters of the underworld, or lords of natural elements—Hades, Pan, Cernunnos—shift and become images of evil as new cultures take over. As the Elemental forces, represented by Kalypso, are debased by Man, they view the things represented by the old Pagan gods and evil. Thus, as Kalypso is bound by Man, that is brought low and debased, her consort, the ferryman, becomes a monster, a skeleton, or an agent of evil. The mythology that the screenwriters have cobbled together is an excellent work of, as Joseph Campbell would say, creative mythology, and pretty accurately mythologizes just what the end period that Pirates movies is set in—a Once Upon the Age of Enlightenment—represents, when, as Cutler Beckett said, the "immaterial is now immaterial."

It was, of course, right after this period, that the Romantic Period set in, which brought about the Gothic Novel, and the Horror Novel. And the screenwriters, on the DVD commentary for the first Pirates movie, said that these stories where intended as a Romance. The Pirate Genre can be understood as a nostalgic genre searching for that time right before modernization, when people could have the freedom to just set out on adventure, of live in their own, idealized worlds, exactly the way Captain Jack Sparrow does. And the movies know this. They are a post-modern work, commenting upon why people like pirate movies, or pirate stories. Because, there is a part of all of us, or at least most of us, that longs for that kind of freedom, the freedom that is represented by the sea, by adventure, and they, in the world of multinational corporations, and governments with social security numbers, and the Internal Revenue Service and industrialization, longs to just Set Out, and Get Away From It All. As Captain Jack says in the first Pirates, while stranded on a beach—a situation that bears a striking resemblance to two wildly popular televisions shows, and accurately encapsulates the drawbacks and pulls of those very desired freedoms—"What a ship really is, what the Black Pearl really is, is freedom."

This is probably why the movies are so wildly popular, and why not matter how often reviewers talk about the confusing plots or muddled characterizations or the loud sense-numbing action sequences, people will still want to see these movies. I still want to see these movies. Because we all want to be Pirates, whether they sailed the Seven Seas or not.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Dammit.

Ah.

Well, more non-posting from me during the past week. See, just after finishing my rather long last post, I got all jazzed, and started writing something new. But, I then failed to do any writing for the last week and a half. Didn't write anything. I got two pages in, then stopped, and the result was that I didn't bother writing anything at all during that time. I was saving the post until after I finished the thing I was working on, but then I didn't do any more work on it, until at this point, I figure it is just necessary to write a post on my lack of work on that piece. Here it is.

Funny thing about that thing I wrote. I tried writing it in a word document, but I couldn't get anywhere, so I gave up and started typing it in the posting section of this blog, and was quickly able to get underway writing. (I cut and pasted the story into a word file every couple of paragraphs.) It's as if I have a mental block on writing when I am doing it outside of a blog post, which I attribute to my past history of running a Deadjournal, and all the carefree typing I used to do in there. Typing in a Word file always seems to be something I did for papers, so I must associate it mentally with strenuous, careful thought, which oftentimes makes it hard to get the creative juices flying. Just now, I was trying to edit and start writing the story again in the word file, and it just wasn't working. Am I stuck in doing all my writing in small text boxes?

Friday, May 11, 2007

On Rap Music, A Wrinkle in Time, and Great Children's Literature: some random thoughts

I don't like most rap music. Most of it concerns a cultural milieu, that, not being my own, I find hard to relate to and uninteresting; it's not that I have anything against black-inner-city-urban-whatever-the-hell-it-is called culture, its just that it is not where my head is at, and thus, being as I see culture as a subjective, relative socially constructed phenomenon with no intrinsic value outside of it's own sphere of interrelationships, I just have no desire to listen to song lyrics—or "raps"—concerning values foreign to my own. I mean, it is not as if there are not certain aspects of it I like, such as the beats—sister Mary is astonished that I have not been lured in by the beats—but all the things that I like are found in ample supply in other musical formats, and the raps—that is, the spoken, rhythmic, delivery of poetry resting somewhere between verse and free verse—while fine bits of rhythm (what a weird word, rhythm, what with being pronounced with two syllables yet having only one vowel with is y of all letters; how Old English) often stand or fall before my tastes based on their content, which, as I said, I usually find either uninteresting, disturbing, or offensive.

Also, I think most of the backing noise is really just electronica by another name, and I prefer live instruments.

This is not to say I dislike all rap. Just that the rap that I do like I like on a case-by-case basis.

The one rap song, which stands above all others for me, is "I Against I" by Mos Def and Massive Attack.

I first heard this song in Blade II. It's the song on the soundtrack when Blade and all the Vampires are marching, all bad-ass and Reservoir Dogs-style, into the vampire club. There's a lot I like about this song. For one thing, there is none of that stupid intro crap that plague's most rap songs. I tried to listen to other Mos Def stuff afterwards, but almost all of this song's start off with the ridiculous "Hey. Yo. What's up? I'm starting this song now. Here's the producer's name. Did I state the year? Uh, yeah, well the year is [year]. Which is good. Oh, and uh, vague political statement, meant to sound important, and to show my Depth As An Artist, but, being a stock phrase, just sounds hackneyed. Yo."

None of that is this song. It starts with a metallic, menacing beat, then a clicking rhythm comes in, then the (fake) bass drum, then more white noise, which, oddly, produces a melody. then Mos Def comes in, and this weird, haunting melody that seems to float along ethereally in the background, enters. the whole song, while really just fading elements in and out, seems to be building continuously to some kind of confrontation. Which, of course, the lyrics seem to be about. On some level, the song is just your standard "battle rap," with Mos Def saying "Do not mess with me. I am very tough and can hurt you very badly. I will win if any altercation occurs." But the language of it is so epic, that it seems to move beyond "battle rap" to some kind of surreal Plane of Constant Battle. (Massive Attack definitely deserves a good share of credit for this effect.)

I against I
Flesh of of my flesh and mind of my mind
Two of a kind but one will survive
My image is reflected in my enemy's eye
And his image is reflected in mine at the same time.

Something like that. It seems to almost be more a psychological battle than physical one; is his opponent really himself, the battle between him and his divided self?

Anyways, the reasons I being all this up is that, for some unfathomable reason, this song reminds me of A Wrinkle in Time. Whenever the song starts playing, I think, "Yep, A Wrinkle in Time." It's kind of like how whenever I listen to Our Lady Peace's Clumsy, I get images in my head of old Batman strips from Archives Volume One, and Hellboy comics, since I read those two things while listening to the album over and over again (back when it was my only non-Beatles album). But this is different, because I hadn't read A Wrinkle in Time in ages when it first started happening. Just for some reason listening to it made me think of the book, and I couldn't figure out why. I think it had something to do with the the archetypal, near-abstract nature of the Conflict in the song being similar to the Conflict in the book. In fact, I ended up rereading A Wrinkle in Time recently, just to see what about the book made me remember it.

A couple of days ago, I picked a copy of A Wrinkle in Time at work that had the best cover art of any copy of the book I had ever seen. Charles Wallace, Meg, and Calvin O'Keefe are standing one behind another staring off into the distance. Standing behind them is Mrs Whatsit in winged-male-centaur form. The background is full of alien terrain, and hovering in the upper right, in the sort of surreal manner of poster art and book covers (this is where Darth Vader usually is in the old Star Wars posters), is the man with the red eyes.

Now this is all pretty standard book cover tropes, but what I liked about this cover was the way the characters where drawn (painted?). Each one of the characters is realistically drawn, as if from photographic models, but looks exactly as they are described in the book. Most book covers don't get this right; the models look like models, and not like the characters at all, or they look like the characters, but they are drawn as cartoons, so reading the books you end up picturing cartoons (this is a big problem for me with the Harry Potter books).

But on this cover they get the details right. Calvin is a tall, thin red-haired boy; attractive, but not in a cover model way, and so as it's believable he might have an attraction to Meg, who is shy and awkward looked, with glasses and bushy brown hair. the kind of girl who could be construed by others as Not Pretty, but could also believably be the daughter of Mrs. Murry, who is consistently described throughout the book as being almost achingly beautiful. Then there is Charles Wallace, a small child, yet with the look of oceanic intelligence in his eyes, which gives him a slightly eerie quality. Oh, and Mrs Whatsit looks like a properly beautiful angelic creature, and the man with the red eyes looks like a nightmare vision: surreal, inhuman, a little out of focus.

The book cover made something occur to me, an answer to a question that I hadn't known until then to formulate, which is the question of how one makes Great Children's Literature. Now, Great Literature, as we know, usually has encombant upon it's title, a certain elegance, or masterful use of prose (a word I am starting to hate; it always seems to pop up in a highfalutin context). Great books read like the author knows how to put words on the page. This means the language has to be complex, polished, to perfectly convey the precise meaning. Yet how can Children's Literature, which, by definition, requires simple, uncomplex language, and no big words, ever hope to be considered Great Literature? Are young readers simply condemned to read bad literature, and there is no way around this?

I suppose one of the reasons I started thinking about this is that I wondered if A Wrinkle in Time would be considered Great Literature by the people who decide such things. Probably not, I thought. The writing is too plain. It is meant to be read by children, after all. But then, I thought, the book's been around for, like, fifty years. Damn right it's Great! So how is it Great, if it doesn't quite meet the qualifications of Great Literature?

And what the cover made me realize is that it is all in the images. Great Children's Literature is, think often based around the use of great images. Not luridly described prose trying to convey things, but the way things are shown in relation to one another. I remember reading a C.S. Lewis quote somewhere about how Narnia started for him without plot but by a bunch of images, such as the lamplight standing on the edge of the forest. Something like that you don't need to describe in detail, and it is still vivid in the mind. What's great in great children's literature is the way is that it can arrange images in a way that imparts something to the reader, hints at deeper depths of feeling without having to beat them over the head.

A Wrinkle in Time is almost wholly revolves around the images and how those images cause a reaction in the reader. The appearances of the Murray's. The abandoned house. The three old women. The alien planet, where Mrs Whatsit shows the children the dark cloud. The inhuman precision of Camazotz (echoed in The Giver, I feel). The man with red eyes. The evil disembodied brain that is IT.

It helps that there are ideas. Great, big interesting ideas, like tesseracts and Evil and Love. Any Great Book needs stuff like that. But the way they are used, and commented on, is all in the things shown, not in the way they are described. That is, while most Great Literature is about trying to capture experience with descriptive words, the human condition can also be captured through the things that represent that experience. The fact that the man with red eyes has red eyes evokes his innate evil just was well as some long elegant description of the way his mind works.

Images also allow the reader to learn a lot about characters through inference without having to explicitly state anything, or even comment on it at all. The fact that Meg is consistently described as plain and awkward, while her mother is described at incredibly beautiful, over and over again, allows you to infer a whole lot into Meg's relation to her her family without the author (who is Madeleine L'Engle, by the way) ever needing to go into Meg's mind. We the readers can fill in for ourselves how this contributes to Meg's inferiority complex (though there are other sources for it as well, of course).

I suppose it's the visual nature of A Wrinkle in Time that made it occur to me while listening to "I against I." The song's mood just fits the images of A Wrinkle in Time so well for me.

****************

I haven't been writing much lately. Mostly, it's been random scribbles in notebooks, all crossed out; random thoughts not committed to paper, left floating in the ether. I need to get those out, man, but it has been a no go lately, hence the light posting. The New Job, which is a kind of thrilling psychological test for mice combined with someone's personal private version of hell, possibly mine, has been consuming most of my energy, so that I never feel like committing my self to the bashing, aggravating process of writing. Also it splits up my freetime; I am awake for about three hours after work and four or five before, and I never want to write just then. After work I am too tired to think, and before work, it's like I have the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head; I am in a state of constant state of agitation which makes committing time to writing feel like wasting time. On the other hand, I am gaining lots of material from the job that is helping develop a story that I have been thinking through was stuck on (this is all plot-talk here, I haven't written anything yet). However, I am now starting to get used to my weir,d unhealthy schedule, and am adjusting to it, getting to know how to use it. Hell, half the point of this post is just to show to myself that I can sit down and write something if I commit to it.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Some Things To Keep In Mind

Make sure all the sentences are pretty.

Makes sure all the paragraphs have a point.

Make sure all the paragraphs add up to something.

Always write keeping in mind where the story is going. Or At least find out early on where the story is going.