I just joined the Flickr a day in the life of ... group and posted five photos that I took on December 21st. I wasn't actually aware of the "a day in the life of..." project on December 21st, so I didn't shoot photos with the intention of participating in this collaborative networked project. Consequently, the picts don't chronicle my entire day. In fact they were all taken within a few minutes of each other late in the morning. Still, I thought I'd post them to the group's site, because they are from December 21st and they will introduce viewers to a different chronicle, that of Gavle's storied 'Branda Bocken.'
Much of my day, if I recall, was spent revising a paper about E.L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel and reading David Foster Wallace's Infinte Jest, which I finally finished yesterday, December 22, 2004. In retrospect, close-up shots of the pages from these novels, replete with flourescent-green highlights and indecipherable marks and annotations, would have made for some fine images.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Monday, December 20, 2004
Imitation of Life: Shelley Jackson on The Sims
I know next to nothing about computer games, though I have played a precursor of The Sims -- I remember spending one afternoon back in 1995 or 1996 playing SimCity (I think) and realizing how dangerously addictive the game could become. I sort of decided back then that I hadn't enough time in my life for both literature and video games and decided to stick to the former as my preferred mode of virtual reality. That said, I recognize that game theory has a lot to contribute to literary studies and, if pressed, will acknowledge that "the book is no longer the main portal to another world."
This last observation is quoted from a short essay by Shelley Jackson, "The Village Voice: NY Mirror: "The Sims: Life In A Glass House". Jackson's essay is a review of the new The Sims 2 video game, but is also a meditation on how to go about constructing an engaging imaginary world.
As someone who constantly struggles with a perfectionist issues when writing, I was particularly struck by Shelley’s comments on creativity and the necessity of failure. Her advice to creative artists in the business of producing simulations is not that failure is inevitable, but necessary. Shelley writes, “So one thing an imaginary world needs, I think, is to fail. Those toiling away on CGI dinosaurs and VR helmets might consider this: When the illusion is perfect it will no longer amaze. Lifelike is impressive because it’s like life, meaning slightly, deliciously different.” This is basically the argument informing Richard Powers’s Plowing the Dark, and the next time I teach the novel you can bet that my students will be reading Jackson’s essay along with it.
Shelley’s remarks are equally applicable to novelists, filmmakers and videogame makers, all of whom would do well to remember that flashy f/x and technical pyrotechnics should not be a work's raison d'etre.
This reminds me, I should get offline as I am about 100-pages away from finally finishing David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and I have other writing to do.
This last observation is quoted from a short essay by Shelley Jackson, "The Village Voice: NY Mirror: "The Sims: Life In A Glass House". Jackson's essay is a review of the new The Sims 2 video game, but is also a meditation on how to go about constructing an engaging imaginary world.
As someone who constantly struggles with a perfectionist issues when writing, I was particularly struck by Shelley’s comments on creativity and the necessity of failure. Her advice to creative artists in the business of producing simulations is not that failure is inevitable, but necessary. Shelley writes, “So one thing an imaginary world needs, I think, is to fail. Those toiling away on CGI dinosaurs and VR helmets might consider this: When the illusion is perfect it will no longer amaze. Lifelike is impressive because it’s like life, meaning slightly, deliciously different.” This is basically the argument informing Richard Powers’s Plowing the Dark, and the next time I teach the novel you can bet that my students will be reading Jackson’s essay along with it.
Shelley’s remarks are equally applicable to novelists, filmmakers and videogame makers, all of whom would do well to remember that flashy f/x and technical pyrotechnics should not be a work's raison d'etre.
This reminds me, I should get offline as I am about 100-pages away from finally finishing David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and I have other writing to do.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Hegel: On the Basic Character of American Society
Here is G.W.F. Hegel on the “basic character of American society”:
In further comparing North America with Europe we find in the former the perennial example of a republican system of government. There is an inner unity in it, for there is a president as head of state who is elected for only four years (as security agasint any possible monarchical ambitions). The general protection of property and the almost total absence of taxes are continually commended. This shows us the basic character of the society: it is marked by the private person's striving for acquisistion and profit and by the predominance of a private interest which devotes itself to the community for personal benefit alone. There is, to be sure, a legal system, and a formal code of laws; but this legality has nothing to do with integrity--and so the American merchants have the bad reputation of cheating with the protection of the law.
This excerpt is from the “Geographical Basis of History” chapter from the Introduction to The Philosophy of History, a text that was published posthumously. My edition is based on an 1840 edition, but Hegel died in 1831, so I'm not sure when Hegel wrote this passage. In any case, it's remarkable how applicable this account of the American character is at present, at least 174 years later. I’m thinking not only of the emphasis in American culture on the individual pursuit of profit and property that Hegel discerns, but also and especially of the functioning of the legal system and its lack of integrity.
If ever I publish an article on William Gaddis, I’ll have to use Hegel’s line about “this legality has nothing to do with integrity” as an epigraph. Gaddis’s JR is all about “cheating with the protection of the law,” which is a useful way of explaining the concept of exemption, which, as a motivator for all sorts of schemes and incentives, is a driving force in American culture and one on which Thomas Pynchon in particular, but many other American literary figures as well, has a strong interest.
In further comparing North America with Europe we find in the former the perennial example of a republican system of government. There is an inner unity in it, for there is a president as head of state who is elected for only four years (as security agasint any possible monarchical ambitions). The general protection of property and the almost total absence of taxes are continually commended. This shows us the basic character of the society: it is marked by the private person's striving for acquisistion and profit and by the predominance of a private interest which devotes itself to the community for personal benefit alone. There is, to be sure, a legal system, and a formal code of laws; but this legality has nothing to do with integrity--and so the American merchants have the bad reputation of cheating with the protection of the law.
This excerpt is from the “Geographical Basis of History” chapter from the Introduction to The Philosophy of History, a text that was published posthumously. My edition is based on an 1840 edition, but Hegel died in 1831, so I'm not sure when Hegel wrote this passage. In any case, it's remarkable how applicable this account of the American character is at present, at least 174 years later. I’m thinking not only of the emphasis in American culture on the individual pursuit of profit and property that Hegel discerns, but also and especially of the functioning of the legal system and its lack of integrity.
If ever I publish an article on William Gaddis, I’ll have to use Hegel’s line about “this legality has nothing to do with integrity” as an epigraph. Gaddis’s JR is all about “cheating with the protection of the law,” which is a useful way of explaining the concept of exemption, which, as a motivator for all sorts of schemes and incentives, is a driving force in American culture and one on which Thomas Pynchon in particular, but many other American literary figures as well, has a strong interest.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Wilco and Bright Eyes to Appear on Austin City Limits
Two of my favorite bands, Wilco and Bright Eyes, each hailing from the two places that I've lived longer than anyplace else, Chicago and Nebraska, respectively, will be appearing on Austin City Limits on January 8, 2005.
I already know that I won't be able to see the show, so I'm hoping somebody will record it. Jim, Adam, are you there? Will you set yr VCRs? Or maybe Santa brought you a TiVO.
I already know that I won't be able to see the show, so I'm hoping somebody will record it. Jim, Adam, are you there? Will you set yr VCRs? Or maybe Santa brought you a TiVO.
Thoughts on The Book of Daniel
I'm in the midst of revising an article on E.L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel, and am using Blogger to both get a different view on different paragraphs and lexias from my text and to back up my writing in yet another place.
A critical element of Daniel’s vicious eroticism is Daniel’s role as a teacher, the older man who instructs and educates Phyllis. There are multiple levels at play here: on the one hand, Daniel is, as an ABD PhD student on the verge of becoming a professor, literally a professional pedagogue, and his text is laced with academic analyses and observations. On the other hand, Daniel assumes the role of Phyllis’s mentor from the very beginning of their relationship. After meeting at a “Central Park Be-In,” Daniel takes Phyllis to his apartment where he wows her with his intellectualism by playing some Bartók and amazing her with the “numbers of books” (56). He reports: “I suggested to her that fucking was a philosophical act of considerable importance (57). Daniel’s suggestion is, as he acknowledges, part of his seduction strategy, a come-on line intended to get Phyllis into bed (“I knew that in deference to this possibility she would allow herself to be fucked”). Yet Daniel’s sentiments should not be dismissed too quickly. What is interesting is how the novel’s “strong erotic content” reinforces this postulate, which, ironically, proves to be something of a prophetic utterance. The irony lies in the fact that the prophecy is largely self-fulfilling, as the eroticized rhetoric in genreal and the sex scenes between Daniel and Phyllis in particular suggest that, by the novel’s present, Daniel has truly come to believe in the philosophical import of fucking. For Daniel, sex is integral to the formation of one’s (political) subjectivity. As Phyllis’s instructor and tormentor, Daniel aims to use sex to teach his wife a lesson about the fragility of political principles. [explain..] Daniel’s tormenting of Phyllis is an effort to convey a sense of the suffering that the Isaacsons experienced, and a fantasy that enables him to act as though he were the committed political subject that he is not.
At issue: must one experience pain and suffering in order to take a stand against it?
A critical element of Daniel’s vicious eroticism is Daniel’s role as a teacher, the older man who instructs and educates Phyllis. There are multiple levels at play here: on the one hand, Daniel is, as an ABD PhD student on the verge of becoming a professor, literally a professional pedagogue, and his text is laced with academic analyses and observations. On the other hand, Daniel assumes the role of Phyllis’s mentor from the very beginning of their relationship. After meeting at a “Central Park Be-In,” Daniel takes Phyllis to his apartment where he wows her with his intellectualism by playing some Bartók and amazing her with the “numbers of books” (56). He reports: “I suggested to her that fucking was a philosophical act of considerable importance (57). Daniel’s suggestion is, as he acknowledges, part of his seduction strategy, a come-on line intended to get Phyllis into bed (“I knew that in deference to this possibility she would allow herself to be fucked”). Yet Daniel’s sentiments should not be dismissed too quickly. What is interesting is how the novel’s “strong erotic content” reinforces this postulate, which, ironically, proves to be something of a prophetic utterance. The irony lies in the fact that the prophecy is largely self-fulfilling, as the eroticized rhetoric in genreal and the sex scenes between Daniel and Phyllis in particular suggest that, by the novel’s present, Daniel has truly come to believe in the philosophical import of fucking. For Daniel, sex is integral to the formation of one’s (political) subjectivity. As Phyllis’s instructor and tormentor, Daniel aims to use sex to teach his wife a lesson about the fragility of political principles. [explain..] Daniel’s tormenting of Phyllis is an effort to convey a sense of the suffering that the Isaacsons experienced, and a fantasy that enables him to act as though he were the committed political subject that he is not.
At issue: must one experience pain and suffering in order to take a stand against it?
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