In an NPR written piece about the future(s) of books:
"Hardbound and paperback books may never totally disappear, but they could become scary scarce — like eight-track tapes, typewriters and wooden tennis rackets."
NPR obviously has never been to my local Goodwill, which has a surplus of all of these things -- an almost hilarious surplus of eight-track tapes, actually. I would also add "business textbooks from the 60s, exercise bikes, VHS tapes (and VCRs), countless novelty and business-logo'ed mugs, and at least one piece of every china pattern ever made."
These things are not scarce at all. In fact, they're all concentrated in almost overwhelming abundance in Salvation Army stores and Goodwills across the nation. Just ask the guys who collect Jerry Maguire video tapes.
Those guys know what's out there.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
The religion of women...perhaps.
I read a well-selected article posted on FB by one of my FB friends who frequently selects articles well -- this one was from The Atlantic, a magazine I've decided I love after years of subscription, and so was already heavily weighted to be a good one -- about women's cinema...or I suppose what might be called women's cinema if such a thing were acknowledged to exist.
The author said this:
I've already diatribed about women being compelled to care about "lesser" things like fashion and hairstyles where men are less compelled, so that's not where I'm going with this.
What strikes me about this quote and this idea is that there is elitism in liking literary fiction over romance genre fiction. And it's justified elitism, to some extent, (I'd like to think) because romance fiction is repetitive and almost automatic, like porn. The point is not the content, but the chemical reaction it triggers in the brain.
These somewhat more sophisticated iterations of "romantic themes" of "sex, dating, and intimate conflict," though, aren't really only triggering chemical reactions, are they? The idea is that because we have to learn to read literary fiction, and properly, it rises above the baser instincts in us to become "art," where women's concerns (always earthy) don't rise above women's baser instincts to relate and emote, and so are not art.
But doesn't romantic fiction "teach" us to read it? We're not born knowing red roses are "romantic," are we?
The heroic epic can be said (Freud certainly would have agreed) to focus and dramatize men's insecurities and struggles, and eventual victories over those turmoils. Maybe Twilight is the equivalent of the classic epic.
I wonder these things not so much as a critic, but as a writer. I find my own fiction to rely very much on "tell, don't show" sensibilities; it explains every intimate detail of the characters in question, reasons out their actions before they even take them, and otherwise commits all the sins of genre fiction that "show, don't tell"-ers grieve over. It's solipsistic to the extreme. Even my plots involve mind-reading and getting lost in one's own inner workings...and some of my fiction couldn't be said to even HAVE a plot.
I mean, this is why I don't write fiction anymore.
But what if these inward-leaning ways of writing aren't inferior, just misused? Maybe there's a way to turn the world of an intimate relationship into the whole world, without going all What Dreams May Come on everyone and externalizing the drama.
I should probably read some more Virginia Woolf. But I suspect I'd probably better read some more LJ Smith, who I loved as a pre-teen, and who probably understood more about hero tropes (for girls) than most of the other authors I've read since.
The author said this:
The Sex and the City and Twilight franchises may have less cosmic implications [than Eat, Pray, Love, which gives women permission to treat break-ups as a big deal], but they too allow women to self-mythologize and assign importance to matters of sex, dating, and intimate conflict—whether they're offering a fantasy of single life as a marvelous, celebratory adventure or a fantasy of literally undying, all-consuming love, what they're offering women is a chance to see their own most personal concerns dramatized and given focus. To see themselves, and their feelings, as important.
I've already diatribed about women being compelled to care about "lesser" things like fashion and hairstyles where men are less compelled, so that's not where I'm going with this.
What strikes me about this quote and this idea is that there is elitism in liking literary fiction over romance genre fiction. And it's justified elitism, to some extent, (I'd like to think) because romance fiction is repetitive and almost automatic, like porn. The point is not the content, but the chemical reaction it triggers in the brain.
These somewhat more sophisticated iterations of "romantic themes" of "sex, dating, and intimate conflict," though, aren't really only triggering chemical reactions, are they? The idea is that because we have to learn to read literary fiction, and properly, it rises above the baser instincts in us to become "art," where women's concerns (always earthy) don't rise above women's baser instincts to relate and emote, and so are not art.
But doesn't romantic fiction "teach" us to read it? We're not born knowing red roses are "romantic," are we?
The heroic epic can be said (Freud certainly would have agreed) to focus and dramatize men's insecurities and struggles, and eventual victories over those turmoils. Maybe Twilight is the equivalent of the classic epic.
I wonder these things not so much as a critic, but as a writer. I find my own fiction to rely very much on "tell, don't show" sensibilities; it explains every intimate detail of the characters in question, reasons out their actions before they even take them, and otherwise commits all the sins of genre fiction that "show, don't tell"-ers grieve over. It's solipsistic to the extreme. Even my plots involve mind-reading and getting lost in one's own inner workings...and some of my fiction couldn't be said to even HAVE a plot.
I mean, this is why I don't write fiction anymore.
But what if these inward-leaning ways of writing aren't inferior, just misused? Maybe there's a way to turn the world of an intimate relationship into the whole world, without going all What Dreams May Come on everyone and externalizing the drama.
I should probably read some more Virginia Woolf. But I suspect I'd probably better read some more LJ Smith, who I loved as a pre-teen, and who probably understood more about hero tropes (for girls) than most of the other authors I've read since.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Local Trivia, Accusations edition: Stupid Ap-man*
*I've deleted a key letter from this person's trail name, in case he ever Googles himself...because I suspect that that's the kind of person he is.
There's a fellow letterboxer who started before me who cannot spell; this is important because the way to find clues to the box you're looking for is to read them online. He often capitalizes random words in the middle of sentences and believes that every time an 's' ends a word, an apostrophe should come before it.
He sometimes writes clues on how to get to the letterbox "in character"...which is one case is "as a caveman," i.e. "Ooh, ooh, ooh, wood, walk, walk, wood, ooh, ooh, ooh, what's this hard thing?"...which could mean you're supposed to walk over a wooden walkway, then walk for awhile, then find a large stone behind which is the letterbox, but how would one know that? How??
One of his clues says to "go diagonal from the brown building." This is not a direction -- "diagonal" is not north, south, east, west, left or right, up or down; you can't "go" it.
That is not a clue, Ap-man.
Add to these offenses that Ap-man often puts his letterboxes nearby other letterboxers' letterboxes, which is taboo and considered very rude.
He sometimes plants store-bought stamps instead of homemade ones, which is considered kind of low-class unless you're a four-year-old.
Add to that that he has planted over 100 boxes, and all radiating out from Local Town, where I live, so that I almost can't go on a letterboxing hunt without attempting to find at least one of his ill-clued boxes, and you'll begin to see why I can't help ranting about this guy. He's terrible, and inescapable.
Every area has a Goofus for letterboxing Gallants to deal with. I guess as a neurotic, OCD-tending, poison-ivy-phobic, fastidious and nerdy letterboxer, I just wish he didn't seem so carefree and optimistic, assuming he wasn't stepping on anyone's toes, assuming everyone would be glad to find his hidden treasures, scattering boxes wherever he goes like a Johnny Appleseed for rubber stamps.
There's a fellow letterboxer who started before me who cannot spell; this is important because the way to find clues to the box you're looking for is to read them online. He often capitalizes random words in the middle of sentences and believes that every time an 's' ends a word, an apostrophe should come before it.
He sometimes writes clues on how to get to the letterbox "in character"...which is one case is "as a caveman," i.e. "Ooh, ooh, ooh, wood, walk, walk, wood, ooh, ooh, ooh, what's this hard thing?"...which could mean you're supposed to walk over a wooden walkway, then walk for awhile, then find a large stone behind which is the letterbox, but how would one know that? How??
One of his clues says to "go diagonal from the brown building." This is not a direction -- "diagonal" is not north, south, east, west, left or right, up or down; you can't "go" it.
That is not a clue, Ap-man.
Add to these offenses that Ap-man often puts his letterboxes nearby other letterboxers' letterboxes, which is taboo and considered very rude.
He sometimes plants store-bought stamps instead of homemade ones, which is considered kind of low-class unless you're a four-year-old.
Add to that that he has planted over 100 boxes, and all radiating out from Local Town, where I live, so that I almost can't go on a letterboxing hunt without attempting to find at least one of his ill-clued boxes, and you'll begin to see why I can't help ranting about this guy. He's terrible, and inescapable.
Every area has a Goofus for letterboxing Gallants to deal with. I guess as a neurotic, OCD-tending, poison-ivy-phobic, fastidious and nerdy letterboxer, I just wish he didn't seem so carefree and optimistic, assuming he wasn't stepping on anyone's toes, assuming everyone would be glad to find his hidden treasures, scattering boxes wherever he goes like a Johnny Appleseed for rubber stamps.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Happy Tonsilitis.
I'm pre-dating this post to my actual birthday, aka, The Day The Tonsilitis Started Getting Serious.
I thought 29 was going to be a rough year, because hey, it's one less than 30, but considering the improvement from day 1, it seems this year is on an upward trend that cannot be topped by any other year's.
First, my tonsilitis wasn't mono, which was a major, major plus.
Then it started getting better thanks to antibiotics, which is in its own way an equally major plus.
Soon I'll be rid of this cough and able to taste foods again, and if I'm not 30 by then, I'll be on the way to a year that will probably only improve from there.
Yay for me.
I thought 29 was going to be a rough year, because hey, it's one less than 30, but considering the improvement from day 1, it seems this year is on an upward trend that cannot be topped by any other year's.
First, my tonsilitis wasn't mono, which was a major, major plus.
Then it started getting better thanks to antibiotics, which is in its own way an equally major plus.
Soon I'll be rid of this cough and able to taste foods again, and if I'm not 30 by then, I'll be on the way to a year that will probably only improve from there.
Yay for me.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
PSA: Friend Becca gets married.
Becca is married, to friend Brad!
Three cheers for a beautifully simple and beautifully coordinated wedding -- because coordination might not be what you want to think about at a wedding, but that's exactly why it's so necessary in the months and weeks before one. Nicely done.
And two and a half cheers also (because no one should get more than the bride on her wedding day) for Debbie and Jeff letting us out-of-towners stay over, and taking us to Asheville and generally being awesome.
Three cheers for a beautifully simple and beautifully coordinated wedding -- because coordination might not be what you want to think about at a wedding, but that's exactly why it's so necessary in the months and weeks before one. Nicely done.
And two and a half cheers also (because no one should get more than the bride on her wedding day) for Debbie and Jeff letting us out-of-towners stay over, and taking us to Asheville and generally being awesome.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Local Trivia: Letterboxing
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to post this on my blog, since I'm pretty sure this kind of thing spreads by word of mouth, and I'm not sure this blog counts as a mouth...but since it's been taking up the majority of my non-work (and some of my work) time lately, I'm blogging about it anyway. We'll see if I'm thrown out on my tail for violating the unstated but possible Fight-Club-ian first rule of letterboxing, which is that you do not talk about letterboxing.
Look it up. I won't explain the whole thing here, except that it involves stamps, and making them yourself, and it's fun -- particularly if you're a person who played Castlevania III: Simon's Quest on NES as though it were a game about collecting the most "hearts" instead of actually questing/progressing through the frames and levels to the end. I heart collecting things, particularly non-corporeal ideas of things, and I also heart crafts. It's as though letterboxing was created by a parallel universe version of me.
Like most of the things I like, it tends toward the obsessive and caters to obsessive people, which means it will probably get tiring sooner or later. But it also can be left behind for years without maintenance and then picked back up again (like all of the crafts I do). And whenever you go somewhere new, there's probably a letterbox or two waiting for you to discover it -- and discover places you may never have seen otherwise.
As a carver/planter, my first and current theme is "They Might Be Giants." I carved the particle mans out of erasers with a box cutter and nail file, as well as the birdhouse in your soul and the purple toupee.
But last night I started using the professional materials and copied this creepy James Ensor painting, and it came out pretty well. I'd say I was hooked, but that's a rug-making joke, and this is way better than that.
I'll try not to make this into a letterboxing blog, but seriously -- look into it.
Look it up. I won't explain the whole thing here, except that it involves stamps, and making them yourself, and it's fun -- particularly if you're a person who played Castlevania III: Simon's Quest on NES as though it were a game about collecting the most "hearts" instead of actually questing/progressing through the frames and levels to the end. I heart collecting things, particularly non-corporeal ideas of things, and I also heart crafts. It's as though letterboxing was created by a parallel universe version of me.
Like most of the things I like, it tends toward the obsessive and caters to obsessive people, which means it will probably get tiring sooner or later. But it also can be left behind for years without maintenance and then picked back up again (like all of the crafts I do). And whenever you go somewhere new, there's probably a letterbox or two waiting for you to discover it -- and discover places you may never have seen otherwise.
As a carver/planter, my first and current theme is "They Might Be Giants." I carved the particle mans out of erasers with a box cutter and nail file, as well as the birdhouse in your soul and the purple toupee.
But last night I started using the professional materials and copied this creepy James Ensor painting, and it came out pretty well. I'd say I was hooked, but that's a rug-making joke, and this is way better than that.
I'll try not to make this into a letterboxing blog, but seriously -- look into it.
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