Have you heard of Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret? Movie about a teenage girl whose casual flirtation causes a serious accident? Explores the world of adolescence? Theatrical release held up for 5 years because of fighting between the director and the producers over what cut of the film to use?
Well, regardless, I'm going to assume that you haven't seen it, since it seems to have been shown in all of 2 theaters in America for a period of 12 hours, just long enough for every film critic in the country to see it and declare it the greatest movie ever made. The reviews read like this:
"God, this is such a good movie. It's just extraordinary. Everything about it was mind-blowing and Kenneth Lonergan, writer-director, is a genius. It's too bad you, dear readers, will never see it... oh man, are you missing out." Gee, thanks.
Anyway, I should preface this by saying that I also have not seen Margaret. What can I say; I was busy for those twelve crucial hours. Now it's out on DVD and maybe I'll get around to watching it... sometime in the next six years.
But I read the reviews, and I just listened to an interview with Lonergan on Fresh Air, and he said something I thought was very interesting. Namely:
GROSS: Since you went to a school similar to the upper-middle-class private school in Manhattan that part of the movie is set in, it made me wonder about how you felt about the teenage girls in your school who were beautiful and, you know, flirtatious and often inappropriate in how they used their sexual power. Do you know?
LONERGAN: Frustrated.
(LAUGHTER)
LONERGAN: I was very frustrated. I was very shy. I didn't have a girlfriend in high school. I felt sort of - I actually felt, I felt envious of them in a way because people were very attracted to them, and they did have this power, and I felt sort of powerless in that arena.
I went to a school exactly like the school in the film, which was an upper-middle-class school, not a super-wealthy school, but there was one kid whose father was extremely wealthy who had bought him a Porsche at 17. And I remember driving around with him in this - we would all pack into his Porsche.
And when the car would go by, all these guys, everyone's head would turn to look at the car because it was so beautiful. And I thought oh, gee, this must be what it's like to be a pretty girl.
Terry Gross goes on to ask Lonergan whether these "teenage feelings" affected the screenplay, and Lonergan, rather unsurprisingly, said yes - but then changed the subject away from his feelings towards teenage girls and towards a more general experience of adolescence.
So here is this piece of art - here is this movie - that explores, in great and intimate detail, the life of a teenage girl. Again, I haven't seen it, but my understanding is that it was broadly praised for its psychological precision and for the way it illustrates the worldview of Anna Paquin's character even as it rips that world apart. And she's very specifically an attractive young woman, exploring her sexuality for the first time.
It was sort of stunning to me to imagine a writer writing that kind of a piece inspired not by sympathy, or personal experience, or an unforgettable observation, but by jealousy.
Part of me wants to take this information, add it to the fact that Lisa, the main character, is essentially punished for an innocent flirtation, and dismiss this whole apparently-brilliant-movie-I-haven't-seen as a middle-aged man finally exacting reveng on the high school girls who wouldn't sleep with him.
Most of me, however, feels like that is unfair. And then I turn to another question: how hard must it be to imagine another person's inner life with any believability if you are envious of that person? Envy twists everything; reshapes every action into one of power and intention, every expression into an indication of some emotion inaccessible to you, attributes power and happiness where the object of envy actually experiences helplessness and feigned contentment. Do you overcompensate, imagine that they must be actually miserable (or do you just make them actually miserable, as a way to correct for your idealization?) When you imagine what it would be like to be a beautiful young girl, can you somehow get over the fact that you desperately want to be one?
At first it seemed like it would be incredibly detrimental for an artist to be jealous of his subject. Even hatred, I think, has more space for nuance than jealousy does; and hatred is at least directed to the subject, moving the attention outward, where as envy always comes back to "I." They have and I don't, they are and I'm not... You can imagine a painter who doesn't truly see the model, a writer whose depictions of others are really explorations of everything he or she lacks. How terribly dull.
But then at the same time, jealousy carries with it an obsessiveness that might be productive. Envy can drive us to watch for every tiny motion, every indication of the source of beauty or success, every crack in a facade, every minor tic of fleeting action. And that might be very fruitful raw material from which to craft a narrative; if you get the exterior perfectly right, maybe that's all that matters.
And now I've talked myself out of any stable position, and I just don't know.
If jealousy is a fruitful source for art, however, I'm going to start writing about circus performers. We saw this show in Montreal where three unbelievably strong and agile circus artists stood on top of a seven-foot building, lit by construction lights and watched by a rapt street-level audience. To the eerie sounds of a throat-singer and a single violin, they flipped their bodies around and above and on top of each other, with no props but each other (and no setting but the city; a stunning backdrop).
I was struck by an envy so intense it almost pulled me out of my awe. In those moments when they are inverted on one hand, that hand on another person's body, sixty or seventy feet above the street, they must be living more intensely than I am. They must be more aware, more in the moment, more themselves.
And to live in those bodies - able to move their weight on one wrist, hold themselves steady at impossible angles - it is not an easy grace, and that's its allure. It's a grace and a power that speaks to years of constant effort, gaining and refining skills, building and re-building muscles. They live in bodies they made themselves, intentionally, every muscle bent at a curve they made through repetitive actions. I work to keep my own body minimally competent, jogging my 11-minute miles so that I can climb stairs or bike to work. I control very little of myself. I live few moments with full awareness of any part of myself. I am so small and weak, my life so accidental.
And they have all this intentionality, all this power, that I lack...
(And watching, when my own self-loathing begins to overpower my admiration, do I not begin to think that I would feel better if I imagined a world where all this seeming power is the cause of their downfall? I think I'm talking myself back into a position on Margaret...)
Showing posts with label not about travel at all. Show all posts
Showing posts with label not about travel at all. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Delay, gratification
7-8 days shipping time. An hour's drive away. Three weeks before the schedules line up. Two hours 'till dark.
These are the delays: lengths of empty time separating me from a self-indulgent Lush purchase, from the nearest drive-in movie theater, from a weekend trip or a starry night.
And then, the gratification: Better than the shelves of right-here-right-now at CVS, better than the movies downloading on a tiny laptop screen, better than a half-enjoyed single nights' trip, better than - well, there's no hurrying sunset. Better than no sight of the stars at all.
It's a virtue, the perserving through the wait; it's a sign of good socialization if you have the self-control to hold off for the bigger payoff. And fundamentally, it's a trade-off. Something better than the best thing you could grab right now, but in exchange, the waiting, the doing-without, the inconvenience, the enduring, the unpleasantness.
It's not just a virtue; it's a sacrifice. Temporary abstention. It's something to teach children like sitting still when your muscles scream to move, eating things that taste bitter, working when you want to stop. You pay for your pleasure with a length of dissatisfaction, you earn your joy with your grim stolidity.
That, at least, is the way I've always understood delayed gratification: an unpleasant wait and eventually a satisfaction just profound enough to make up for all your inconvenience.
But here - where everything feels so far away, where buying or seeing or eating anything takes so long, where there's no such thing as ordering delivery or running to the grocery store - I'm starting to think I had it all backwards.
The delay is the reward. The wait is the gratification. The payoff? Eh. It's not so great. All the fanciest soaps in the world would provide not a whit of existential satisfaction. The movies always disappoint in the end. Vacations are exhausting, the starry nights are cold. There's pleasure in them, but it wouldn't be worth any grim endurance.
But it's more than worth the wait it takes, because the wait is wonderful. I live in an odd world here, its true, as beautiful as it is sparse. Waiting here is as luxurious as it is necessary. In some places, an hour's drive might really be a sacrifice, and an optional one, and my understanding of the value of delay would be unchanged. But here, an hour through Amish countryside, sun shining over uninterrupted hills of green, gray and red barns, peaceful cows, a playlist on shuffle and a van loaded with carless friends - that's the only way to get to a theater, and it's a pleasure, one that would be notably absent from a five-minute drive to a theater in town. And shopping in stores on your way home - a single purchase, immediately in hand? Oh, why bother? There's no frisson of anticipation, no checking of tracking numbers and imagining unsmelled-scents. I'll pay extra for a longer shipping time, thanks; send it to me via Scotland and Nepal, give my box customs stickers from foreign locales, let my package have adventures and tell me how it goes, I'll wait.
A spontaneous vacation would probably be delightful; but right now, when that's impossible, I have endless possibilities and no need to winnow them down. Miles on miles of urban bike trails in Montreal, dozens of bed and breakfasts along the way, right now I can stay at them all; or an Amtrak to the City, a night blowing our unspent change on a show? Why not? Which show? They're all on my list, no possibility excluded.
And then the slightly shifting colors of the sun's slow decline.
I'm rethinking what it means to be patient. Psychologists talk of delayed gratification in the mathematical terms of an economist, the future benefits delayed, but I'm starting to think of hiking: longer paths to taller peaks, the scampering of tiny chipmunks and the call of invisible birds along the way, the sweet thigh-burning of the climb.
And its starting to seem more and more misguided to lock a child in a room with a single marshmallow and tell them they get two if they wait. This may be an effective test to see if they can endure delayed gratification, but it teaches them nothing of how to enjoy it.
Sit them instead in front of an oven, with a box of Chips Ahoy in the trash and a big bowl of cookie dough in their laps and teach them to roll the sweetness into a ball; Marvell had it wrong, there's time enough for this. Lined up on a pan, popped in the oven. Longer than it takes to pop a cookie from a plastic tray, but not unpleasant for the extra time; no squirming, hand-biting, self-denying sacrifice. Just the smell of baking cookies.
I'm learning to inhale.
These are the delays: lengths of empty time separating me from a self-indulgent Lush purchase, from the nearest drive-in movie theater, from a weekend trip or a starry night.
And then, the gratification: Better than the shelves of right-here-right-now at CVS, better than the movies downloading on a tiny laptop screen, better than a half-enjoyed single nights' trip, better than - well, there's no hurrying sunset. Better than no sight of the stars at all.
It's a virtue, the perserving through the wait; it's a sign of good socialization if you have the self-control to hold off for the bigger payoff. And fundamentally, it's a trade-off. Something better than the best thing you could grab right now, but in exchange, the waiting, the doing-without, the inconvenience, the enduring, the unpleasantness.
It's not just a virtue; it's a sacrifice. Temporary abstention. It's something to teach children like sitting still when your muscles scream to move, eating things that taste bitter, working when you want to stop. You pay for your pleasure with a length of dissatisfaction, you earn your joy with your grim stolidity.
That, at least, is the way I've always understood delayed gratification: an unpleasant wait and eventually a satisfaction just profound enough to make up for all your inconvenience.
But here - where everything feels so far away, where buying or seeing or eating anything takes so long, where there's no such thing as ordering delivery or running to the grocery store - I'm starting to think I had it all backwards.
The delay is the reward. The wait is the gratification. The payoff? Eh. It's not so great. All the fanciest soaps in the world would provide not a whit of existential satisfaction. The movies always disappoint in the end. Vacations are exhausting, the starry nights are cold. There's pleasure in them, but it wouldn't be worth any grim endurance.
But it's more than worth the wait it takes, because the wait is wonderful. I live in an odd world here, its true, as beautiful as it is sparse. Waiting here is as luxurious as it is necessary. In some places, an hour's drive might really be a sacrifice, and an optional one, and my understanding of the value of delay would be unchanged. But here, an hour through Amish countryside, sun shining over uninterrupted hills of green, gray and red barns, peaceful cows, a playlist on shuffle and a van loaded with carless friends - that's the only way to get to a theater, and it's a pleasure, one that would be notably absent from a five-minute drive to a theater in town. And shopping in stores on your way home - a single purchase, immediately in hand? Oh, why bother? There's no frisson of anticipation, no checking of tracking numbers and imagining unsmelled-scents. I'll pay extra for a longer shipping time, thanks; send it to me via Scotland and Nepal, give my box customs stickers from foreign locales, let my package have adventures and tell me how it goes, I'll wait.
A spontaneous vacation would probably be delightful; but right now, when that's impossible, I have endless possibilities and no need to winnow them down. Miles on miles of urban bike trails in Montreal, dozens of bed and breakfasts along the way, right now I can stay at them all; or an Amtrak to the City, a night blowing our unspent change on a show? Why not? Which show? They're all on my list, no possibility excluded.
And then the slightly shifting colors of the sun's slow decline.
I'm rethinking what it means to be patient. Psychologists talk of delayed gratification in the mathematical terms of an economist, the future benefits delayed, but I'm starting to think of hiking: longer paths to taller peaks, the scampering of tiny chipmunks and the call of invisible birds along the way, the sweet thigh-burning of the climb.
And its starting to seem more and more misguided to lock a child in a room with a single marshmallow and tell them they get two if they wait. This may be an effective test to see if they can endure delayed gratification, but it teaches them nothing of how to enjoy it.
Sit them instead in front of an oven, with a box of Chips Ahoy in the trash and a big bowl of cookie dough in their laps and teach them to roll the sweetness into a ball; Marvell had it wrong, there's time enough for this. Lined up on a pan, popped in the oven. Longer than it takes to pop a cookie from a plastic tray, but not unpleasant for the extra time; no squirming, hand-biting, self-denying sacrifice. Just the smell of baking cookies.
I'm learning to inhale.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
intruder alert
The other day two men tried to break into my friends' apartment while two of them were there. William, one of the roommates who was not there, mentioned this offhandedly.
"WHAT?" That is me speaking, as anyone with a passing acquaintance with William could probably infer. William's speech could very rarely be transcribed using all caps.
"Yeah."
"WHY? WHEN? What did they want? What happened? Did they call the police? Did the police get there in time? Did they catch them?"
"Yup."
"YOU DIDN'T ANSWER MY OTHER QUESTIONS!"
"Oh, and it turns out one of them was [another friend]'s brother. And he had a stun gun or something."
"WHAT? EXPLAIN!!"
"I dunno, I think that's mostly it."
William, I concluded, is terrible at telling stories - although it must be said that withholding that last little fact made for a nice twist ending, very clever, sneaky bastard, etc. So we went to the apartment and I went straight to the source - the friend, Patrick, who saw it all happen and called the cops.
"Yeah, somebody rang the doorbell and I looked out and didn't know him. So then he left. But then I saw somebody trying to break in, so I called the cops."
In despair - what does it look like when you see somebody break in? Who were they? What were they carrying? What were you thinking? What did the cops say? - I turned to our friend Annie, who took over the story-telling with an epic, action-packed, gesture-filled, dialogue-heavy narrative that, while occasionally inaccurate (Patrick was the prime witness, after all, and occasionally corrected her) had all the human drama the boys' versions lacked. There was her, blissfully unaware as Patrick dialed 911 and watched a screwdriver stabbing at the deadbolt; there was Patrick, running outside to try to get a good look at the fleeing would-be intruders, an act that seemed to me extraordinarily stupid; there were cops, shouting "POLICE! DOWN!" just as the script would call for, there were perps giving false names, wielding odd weapons, seeking revenge on supposedly cuckolding younger brothers. It was a much more satisfying narrative.
I will not proceed from here to some cockamamie argument about female superiority in storytelling, although I've presented as much evidence as many pop evolutionary psychologist regularly provide in their books. I hate evolutionary psychology so much. So much. I don't usually waste energy actively hating (pseudo)scientific disciplines but I can't help it. So much hate. I am derailing myself.
My point was simply to support a writing-related assertion: the truth is not enough.
"WHAT?" That is me speaking, as anyone with a passing acquaintance with William could probably infer. William's speech could very rarely be transcribed using all caps.
"Yeah."
"WHY? WHEN? What did they want? What happened? Did they call the police? Did the police get there in time? Did they catch them?"
"Yup."
"YOU DIDN'T ANSWER MY OTHER QUESTIONS!"
"Oh, and it turns out one of them was [another friend]'s brother. And he had a stun gun or something."
"WHAT? EXPLAIN!!"
"I dunno, I think that's mostly it."
William, I concluded, is terrible at telling stories - although it must be said that withholding that last little fact made for a nice twist ending, very clever, sneaky bastard, etc. So we went to the apartment and I went straight to the source - the friend, Patrick, who saw it all happen and called the cops.
"Yeah, somebody rang the doorbell and I looked out and didn't know him. So then he left. But then I saw somebody trying to break in, so I called the cops."
In despair - what does it look like when you see somebody break in? Who were they? What were they carrying? What were you thinking? What did the cops say? - I turned to our friend Annie, who took over the story-telling with an epic, action-packed, gesture-filled, dialogue-heavy narrative that, while occasionally inaccurate (Patrick was the prime witness, after all, and occasionally corrected her) had all the human drama the boys' versions lacked. There was her, blissfully unaware as Patrick dialed 911 and watched a screwdriver stabbing at the deadbolt; there was Patrick, running outside to try to get a good look at the fleeing would-be intruders, an act that seemed to me extraordinarily stupid; there were cops, shouting "POLICE! DOWN!" just as the script would call for, there were perps giving false names, wielding odd weapons, seeking revenge on supposedly cuckolding younger brothers. It was a much more satisfying narrative.
I will not proceed from here to some cockamamie argument about female superiority in storytelling, although I've presented as much evidence as many pop evolutionary psychologist regularly provide in their books. I hate evolutionary psychology so much. So much. I don't usually waste energy actively hating (pseudo)scientific disciplines but I can't help it. So much hate. I am derailing myself.
My point was simply to support a writing-related assertion: the truth is not enough.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
what gender do your ads think you are?
I 100% ought to be asleep right now, but THIS IS INTERESTING!
Click here: www.google.com/ads/preferences/view (via Ta-Nehisi Coates - the follow-up to his nail-on-the-head commentary on Condaleeza Rice, Hillary Clinton and babies)
If your cookies are on, at that handy link you will find the general categories of sites that Google has been creepily watching you visit.
That's mostly pretty boring, because you presumably knew this already - if you are shocked to find what sort of things you do on the internet, that's your own problem - but look a little lower! Check out that bottom item and its explanation -
"Based on the websites you've visited, we think you're interested in topics that mostly interest men."
What is it, do you think? The coupons? The humanities reference sites? The wildlife? (That's adorable baby videos, by the way). The Business and Industrial - Chemicals might be throwing them off (I think that came from a digression after searching for "melamine") but then I've also got cooking and bed and bath.... Really, I can only assume that my minor obsession with webcomics is marking me as masculine.
Is this an assumption - an obviously wrong assumption - based on data? I should hope so, since they're Google... man, I'd love to see that data. And I would really love to know just how many people they've got wrong.
Click here: www.google.com/ads/preferences/view (via Ta-Nehisi Coates - the follow-up to his nail-on-the-head commentary on Condaleeza Rice, Hillary Clinton and babies)
If your cookies are on, at that handy link you will find the general categories of sites that Google has been creepily watching you visit.
That's mostly pretty boring, because you presumably knew this already - if you are shocked to find what sort of things you do on the internet, that's your own problem - but look a little lower! Check out that bottom item and its explanation -
"Based on the websites you've visited, we think you're interested in topics that mostly interest men."
What is it, do you think? The coupons? The humanities reference sites? The wildlife? (That's adorable baby videos, by the way). The Business and Industrial - Chemicals might be throwing them off (I think that came from a digression after searching for "melamine") but then I've also got cooking and bed and bath.... Really, I can only assume that my minor obsession with webcomics is marking me as masculine.
Is this an assumption - an obviously wrong assumption - based on data? I should hope so, since they're Google... man, I'd love to see that data. And I would really love to know just how many people they've got wrong.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
testing testing one two three
okay i have about fifteen billion blog posts I should have written, and should also rename this blog probably, but rather than waiting until I do these things before I write anything ever again, I'm forging ahead.
News! Research! Insights into study methods! Whoohoo! Is... is nobody else this excited?
Okay, so I actually kind of enjoy tests - why did I become an English major - what a fool I am - but anyway, tests are fun! They are challenges that, unlike so many of life's challenges (oooh did you see me just get deep), are measurable. Quantifiable, manageable, sometimes repeatable... if only all of life's obstacles could be so concrete!
Here's the news: Taking tests actually helps you learn better than studying does. Go read the article - it's okay, I'll wait!
(If you're not reading it, here's the gist: Purdue researches divided students into four groups. They all read the same passage. One group was the control (did nothing else), another studied by reading it repeatedly, another by concept mapping, and another through "retrieval practice," where they took little mini-"tests." A week later they all took a test and the retrieval practice group remembered much more than the others. There was another experiment, which also found the test-taking group remembered more later)
So, interesting: the test the "retrieval practice" group did and the test all groups took a week later were not the same. If you're thinking maybe they had an advantage because their study method and testing method were the same, well, think again - the "study" test was a free-write essay, and the "test" test was a short-answer test. It wasn't the test format that helped. IN FACT, in the second experiment the retreival practice group did better than the concept-mapping group on a concept-mapping test. Let that one marinate for a while.
And, useful! Because the "retrieval practice" method that they used is dead easy. Dead easy. Here's how it works: Take ten minutes and a blank piece of paper and write down everything you remember.
Okay, now go back to whatever you're studying and read it again. Then get another piece of paper and try again.
And now you're done!
If you think about it, this method makes perfect sense. When you test yourself, you learn what you don't know - and you practice remembering what you do know. Whereas reading something over and over again doesn't make any sense at all - you just get really good at reading that info. Fat lot of good that will do you come finals.
I realized that this is how I memorize poetry, too! You can read a piece a dozen times and not learn a line. The only way to learn it is to set it down, try to recite it from memory and see where you stumble.
So here's what I leave you with, on this Saturday night, before I have dinner and then... well, I won't be studying. But when next you are, just remember: testing yourself, by simply writing down what you can remember, is not only one of the least painful ways to study (no eye-straining reading, no rote repetition, no flashcards!) but also, apparently, one of the most effective.
Go forth and prosper.
News! Research! Insights into study methods! Whoohoo! Is... is nobody else this excited?
Okay, so I actually kind of enjoy tests - why did I become an English major - what a fool I am - but anyway, tests are fun! They are challenges that, unlike so many of life's challenges (oooh did you see me just get deep), are measurable. Quantifiable, manageable, sometimes repeatable... if only all of life's obstacles could be so concrete!
Here's the news: Taking tests actually helps you learn better than studying does. Go read the article - it's okay, I'll wait!
(If you're not reading it, here's the gist: Purdue researches divided students into four groups. They all read the same passage. One group was the control (did nothing else), another studied by reading it repeatedly, another by concept mapping, and another through "retrieval practice," where they took little mini-"tests." A week later they all took a test and the retrieval practice group remembered much more than the others. There was another experiment, which also found the test-taking group remembered more later)
So, interesting: the test the "retrieval practice" group did and the test all groups took a week later were not the same. If you're thinking maybe they had an advantage because their study method and testing method were the same, well, think again - the "study" test was a free-write essay, and the "test" test was a short-answer test. It wasn't the test format that helped. IN FACT, in the second experiment the retreival practice group did better than the concept-mapping group on a concept-mapping test. Let that one marinate for a while.
And, useful! Because the "retrieval practice" method that they used is dead easy. Dead easy. Here's how it works: Take ten minutes and a blank piece of paper and write down everything you remember.
Okay, now go back to whatever you're studying and read it again. Then get another piece of paper and try again.
And now you're done!
If you think about it, this method makes perfect sense. When you test yourself, you learn what you don't know - and you practice remembering what you do know. Whereas reading something over and over again doesn't make any sense at all - you just get really good at reading that info. Fat lot of good that will do you come finals.
I realized that this is how I memorize poetry, too! You can read a piece a dozen times and not learn a line. The only way to learn it is to set it down, try to recite it from memory and see where you stumble.
So here's what I leave you with, on this Saturday night, before I have dinner and then... well, I won't be studying. But when next you are, just remember: testing yourself, by simply writing down what you can remember, is not only one of the least painful ways to study (no eye-straining reading, no rote repetition, no flashcards!) but also, apparently, one of the most effective.
Go forth and prosper.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
two observations
(now that final papers are starting to come due, you'll probably see a lot more posts!)
Okay, so first of all, there seems to be a tendency in British advertising and media to use puns in very unfunny contexts. Is it a result of the pun-heavy style of the tabloids? Do they not think puns are necessarily jokes? Maybe "puns" is the wrong word, because a lot of the ads don't technically use puns, but wordplay for sure. Here are two examples of ads that struck me as off - one really disturbing one about rape and minicabs and one about road deaths. Both have been hard to avoid on the tube, and both are graphic and upsetting. And use wordplay.
I'm not saying American ads don't use puns for serious PSAs - and maybe I just see more ads here - and maybe I'm reading too much into it. Do either of those ads bother anybody else?
Secondly, I was reminded of my objection to this serious use of wordplay when I read the final line of this Guardian article, about the Afghan woman who was featured on the cover of Time after her husband and the Taliban disfigured her for attempting to escape her marriage.
The article had several moments that made me do a reading-stutter - you know, where your eyes skip back up a few lines and try again - including one passage that made me almost want to write my postcolonialism final paper on nationalism and feminist postcolonialism:
Oh, yes, the feminist reading is obvious and undoubtedly true but WHATEVER, not interesting! Let's talk about nationalism instead!
Anyway, the article actually featured two separate bits of wordplay that I found inappropriate. The first was a pun that, as an act of journalistic impropriety, wasn't too - well, wasn't too bad -
I mean, if, say, I were writing an essay on the subject, I would put a pun like in a rough draft for sure, but guess what? I would take it out during my first rewrite, because one of the first things I do during revision is remove the wordplay that I think is amusing but doesn't add anything substantive. Unless I think it is splendidly good. Which, obviously, this isn't. And especially if I'm discussing a serious subject. Which, obviously, this is.
But whatever, this appears to be a feature/column-style story - although linked under World News - so that can certainly be excused as wry irony rather than somebody taking the piss. But - but!!
The Taliban, who have minimal support in Afghanistan, understand the deep yearning for peace in the country after decades of fighting. That's why they are prepared to commit the most monstrous violence, particularly against women, to force the Afghans to submit to their order.
Anyone who is serious about challenging misogyny in Afghanistan is required, at the very minimum, to acknowledge this depressing reality. Equally, regardless of whether the troops stay or are withdrawn, it's important, if only for the sake of honest debate, to state clearly what's at stake. Aisha's experience is not the whole story, but it does symbolise a critical subplot that ought not be neglected. That much, at least, is as plain as the nose that is missing from her face.
All right, let's set aside the idea of women's rights being a "critical subplot" because obviously that's the thing to do...
As plain as the nose that is missing from her face?
You wrote that, Andrew Anthony? And you published that, Guardian and Observer?
I am, as the kids say, "shaking my head." smh. smh. smh 'till it freaking falls off. But by the way, I wouldn't write that if we were discussing decapitation. When murdering groups of soldiers rip somebody's organs out, like, say, their heart, you don't call that "a heart-rending act of crime" in a news story in a major newspaper. Electrical torture should never be intentionally referred to as a "shocking act." The fact that women set themselves on fire to escape agonizing marriages? Not "an issue of burning importance."
Common decency, people.
[But is it a British thing? Do they not find this incredibly disrespectful and distasteful? Or is it even just a me thing? Surely not! Somebody back me up here!]
Okay, so first of all, there seems to be a tendency in British advertising and media to use puns in very unfunny contexts. Is it a result of the pun-heavy style of the tabloids? Do they not think puns are necessarily jokes? Maybe "puns" is the wrong word, because a lot of the ads don't technically use puns, but wordplay for sure. Here are two examples of ads that struck me as off - one really disturbing one about rape and minicabs and one about road deaths. Both have been hard to avoid on the tube, and both are graphic and upsetting. And use wordplay.
I'm not saying American ads don't use puns for serious PSAs - and maybe I just see more ads here - and maybe I'm reading too much into it. Do either of those ads bother anybody else?
Secondly, I was reminded of my objection to this serious use of wordplay when I read the final line of this Guardian article, about the Afghan woman who was featured on the cover of Time after her husband and the Taliban disfigured her for attempting to escape her marriage.
The article had several moments that made me do a reading-stutter - you know, where your eyes skip back up a few lines and try again - including one passage that made me almost want to write my postcolonialism final paper on nationalism and feminist postcolonialism:
In an obvious sense Aisha's story conforms to a traditional feminist reading of the struggle of women against patriarchal society. Consigned to the status of a domestic slave, she rebelled and felt the brutal force of male-dominated tribal society. And there is no doubt that this is the context in which this vicious crime against a teenage girl took place.
However, it's not the only context, and for many critics of the Time cover, it's not the most significant context. Because, of course, Afghanistan plays host to tens of thousands of foreign troops, most of them American, and as such any efforts to remove the troops are seen by critics of the occupation as all part of a legitimate anti-imperialist cause. From this perspective, to put it crudely, national liberation always trumps female emancipation.
Oh, yes, the feminist reading is obvious and undoubtedly true but WHATEVER, not interesting! Let's talk about nationalism instead!
Anyway, the article actually featured two separate bits of wordplay that I found inappropriate. The first was a pun that, as an act of journalistic impropriety, wasn't too - well, wasn't too bad -
She had been given to her husband when she was 12, as payment to settle a dispute – a practice in Afghanistan that goes by the fitting name of "baad".
I mean, if, say, I were writing an essay on the subject, I would put a pun like in a rough draft for sure, but guess what? I would take it out during my first rewrite, because one of the first things I do during revision is remove the wordplay that I think is amusing but doesn't add anything substantive. Unless I think it is splendidly good. Which, obviously, this isn't. And especially if I'm discussing a serious subject. Which, obviously, this is.
But whatever, this appears to be a feature/column-style story - although linked under World News - so that can certainly be excused as wry irony rather than somebody taking the piss. But - but!!
The Taliban, who have minimal support in Afghanistan, understand the deep yearning for peace in the country after decades of fighting. That's why they are prepared to commit the most monstrous violence, particularly against women, to force the Afghans to submit to their order.
Anyone who is serious about challenging misogyny in Afghanistan is required, at the very minimum, to acknowledge this depressing reality. Equally, regardless of whether the troops stay or are withdrawn, it's important, if only for the sake of honest debate, to state clearly what's at stake. Aisha's experience is not the whole story, but it does symbolise a critical subplot that ought not be neglected. That much, at least, is as plain as the nose that is missing from her face.
All right, let's set aside the idea of women's rights being a "critical subplot" because obviously that's the thing to do...
As plain as the nose that is missing from her face?
You wrote that, Andrew Anthony? And you published that, Guardian and Observer?
I am, as the kids say, "shaking my head." smh. smh. smh 'till it freaking falls off. But by the way, I wouldn't write that if we were discussing decapitation. When murdering groups of soldiers rip somebody's organs out, like, say, their heart, you don't call that "a heart-rending act of crime" in a news story in a major newspaper. Electrical torture should never be intentionally referred to as a "shocking act." The fact that women set themselves on fire to escape agonizing marriages? Not "an issue of burning importance."
Common decency, people.
[But is it a British thing? Do they not find this incredibly disrespectful and distasteful? Or is it even just a me thing? Surely not! Somebody back me up here!]
Saturday, November 13, 2010
proposed definitions: a good book...
... is one where you struggle to suppress the urge to read out extracts - paragraphs or pages - to anyone in hearing distance. and of course, with a great book you can't hold back any more, and bug all your friends with "no listen to this--"
and literature? how do you define literature? one of my current professors likes to say "thoughtful writing," which seems inadequate. "whatever's in the canon" is certainly inadequate. "inaccessible" is worse than inadequate. definitions based on style or content are shallow...
so far the best i've got - inadequate, of course, of course - is "words that are trying to do many things as once." maybe?? putting aside "making money for their author" or "get read," words often try to be informative, inflammatory, titillating, fun to read, insightful, original... but it seems to me that the texts that are considered, or that I consider, "literature," are all shooting to do many things simultaneously. I have heard people talk about literature as texts that make us think about the human condition, but many non-fiction books on religion or philosophy do the same - but if that's all the words are trying to do, and not delight the eye and ear, surprise, be consistently interesting, inspire an emotional response, whatever - then it's hardly literature. but I do think that non-fiction writing can be literature- just that most isn't. books that are only fun aren't literature. books that are only complicated aren't literature. books that are only trying to "be literary" generally aren't. and many books try to do two or three things - have a moral, be funny, and be interesting; be informative and be allegorical; be easy to read and suspenseful; but "literature," for whatever the designation is worth, shoots for so many meanings and effects at once that one cannot easily list them all.
oh, but it's problematic. "words" or "authors" trying to do many things as once? and what is this "trying?" but if not "trying," how does one define success? but for that matter, how does one define "trying?" and what marks the division between the different things words can do - and does the intended audience matter? can things be literature without trying to be? how many is "many?" i think at some point we have to agree that some words pretty well defy concrete definition.
but even if a thing is undefinable, we can't just leave it at that, can we?
can we?
and literature? how do you define literature? one of my current professors likes to say "thoughtful writing," which seems inadequate. "whatever's in the canon" is certainly inadequate. "inaccessible" is worse than inadequate. definitions based on style or content are shallow...
so far the best i've got - inadequate, of course, of course - is "words that are trying to do many things as once." maybe?? putting aside "making money for their author" or "get read," words often try to be informative, inflammatory, titillating, fun to read, insightful, original... but it seems to me that the texts that are considered, or that I consider, "literature," are all shooting to do many things simultaneously. I have heard people talk about literature as texts that make us think about the human condition, but many non-fiction books on religion or philosophy do the same - but if that's all the words are trying to do, and not delight the eye and ear, surprise, be consistently interesting, inspire an emotional response, whatever - then it's hardly literature. but I do think that non-fiction writing can be literature- just that most isn't. books that are only fun aren't literature. books that are only complicated aren't literature. books that are only trying to "be literary" generally aren't. and many books try to do two or three things - have a moral, be funny, and be interesting; be informative and be allegorical; be easy to read and suspenseful; but "literature," for whatever the designation is worth, shoots for so many meanings and effects at once that one cannot easily list them all.
oh, but it's problematic. "words" or "authors" trying to do many things as once? and what is this "trying?" but if not "trying," how does one define success? but for that matter, how does one define "trying?" and what marks the division between the different things words can do - and does the intended audience matter? can things be literature without trying to be? how many is "many?" i think at some point we have to agree that some words pretty well defy concrete definition.
but even if a thing is undefinable, we can't just leave it at that, can we?
can we?
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