Affinity

As an ( unintended ) rebuttal to the Henny Penny  hysteria still going on at The Edge over The Atlantic Magazine’s article, Is Google Making Us Stupid ?  ( already discussed in an earlier post of mine ), here is a nice quote from a Humanities Magazine article  about Ted Lord, executive director of Humanities Washington:

“We are living in a golden age for pamphleteers,” says Lord, leaning in to emphasize the “golden” bit. “It has become possible to connect people in ways never available before. The Web brings together huge numbers of people, of course. But it also allows us to find narrower and narrower slices of affinity.”

And while the idea of “cloud computing” is often cited as a way to put many minds to work simultaneously on a scientific or engineering challenge, Lord envisions ways that an online community could come together and collaborate in other ways—to think, to philosophize, to write a poem, or a story.

In any event, Lord says, he loves the idea of people thinking of the Web more as a vehicle for culture than for commerce.

“I’m all for reflection, discernment, and giving voice,” he says, “as opposed to buying more things we don’t need.”

The article is called In Focus: Ted Lord  and it’s by Sam Howe Verhovek.

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/

If Homer Were a Photographer

What would Homer have liked his listeners (and now readers) to take away from his tales?

Like the Sirens in the Odyssey,  he wanted to teach and to seduce with his [ photographs ].

If you had to have a Greek god as your patron, who would you choose?

Hermes. He is the god of in-betweens, thresholds, transitions, travel ( wings on the feet ), and the psychopomp ( he escorts souls to the underworld ).

The above Q & A, appropriated to my own photographic ends, are from Humanities Magazine’s Impertinent Questions   answered by James I. Porter: this issues questions are ( obviously ) about Homer. They are not about photography.

Footnote or endnote?

I love both. I’d like to find a way to make endnotes refer to footnotes.

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/

Trains

Felix Grant has a post on his blog, They say I’m a dreamer …  that, in turn, springs from a long post on the JSBooks blog about trains in literature. I have been pondering this all morning and the only trains that I can think of are 1) in the movies, and 2) being either robbed or blown up. In particular, by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid of the Wild Bunch ( shown below ). And in the many, many modern action thrillers that I rather like but which all blur together into one continuous explosion ( from which the hero always emerges unscathed ).

 

 

Felix’s post includes a lovely, dreamy photo of railway tracks vanishing into the distance. However, I can’t help wondering if the fearful reactions he has discovered from some people to the photo is due to the expectation of either an explosion or the arrival of train robbers – or both. As Grant notes about his picture, “Just goes to show … the author is not only dead but has no control at all over what his signifiers get up to once released into the world.”

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/

Salman and Terry

Samples from a March 2003 interview of Terry Gilliam by Salman Rushdie  in Believer  magazine:

SR: There is an untold story, both about writers and filmmakers, which is that so many of us started in advertising. I started in advertising. So did Don DeLillo. Joseph Heller. When I was working in advertising in the 1970s, the commercials’ filmmakers were Nicolas Roeg, Alan Parker, Hugh Hudson, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Adrian Lyne. I mean, I made a haircare commercial with Nic Roeg.

TG: Did you ever buy the product?

SR: It was Clairol’s Loving Care. It was for keeping the gray out. I didn’t have any gray hair back then. Anyway, whenever anyone asks me what the influence of advertising was on my work I say, “Nothing.” Wouldn’t you say that?

TG: Oh God, I wish I could. I wish I was that pure.

SR: Apart from being good for the bank balance. When I was writing Midnight’s Children, I used to work two days a week at an ad agency and five days a week writing my book, and I thought of it, kind of, as industrial sponsorship.

And later:

SR: There was a time when I had hair, too. And about the time you came to Europe, I made my first visit to America. Actually, on an advertising gig. I was being asked to write travel advertising, encouraging people to take their vacations in the United States. But I had never been in the United States. So the American government, I guess under Nixon, kindly sent me on a free trip around America to have a vacation so I could go home and write about having one. I arrived in San Francisco with long hair, no beard, but a Zapata mustache—remember those? I mean, that’s how long ago it was. And there was a sign in the immigration office saying [ mimics flat American accent ] “A few extra minutes in customs is a small price to pay to save your children from the menace of drugs.”

We’re standing in line, and in front of me there’s this kind of classic, American redneck guy with a very red neck about this wide. [ Holds out hands almost a foot apart. ] He turned around to me, and with a complete change of heart, he said, “Buddy, I sure feel sorry for you.” And he was right. I mean, I got taken to pieces. I got strip searched, I got everything. And I arrived in America, you know, for the first time, trembling. There was this tiny lady standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus, and she saw that I was trembling. She said, “What’s the matter, dear?” and it kind of all poured out. And—this was the other side of America—she did this amazing thing, she apologized on behalf of the United States. She put her hands in the elocution position. [ Holds out hands in front of chest, fingers interlocking, pinkie to thumb. ] She looked like Grandma Clampett, this tiny old lady. And she made a formal apology on behalf of the American people. And it fixed it, you know. Then it was all right. Then I could go and enjoy America.

TG: Well you’re right. That’s the great thing about America: American people.

SR: Yeah, they’ll do that. First they’ll search your rectum, and then they’ll apologize for it.

You haven’t clicked the link yet? Here’s a bit more:

SR: Well, I thought that when…did you see the Kubrick-Spielberg Artificial Intelligence, AI  ?

TG: Oh God. [ Whispers. ] What was that?

SR: [ Laughs. ]

Read it! It’s good! [ link ]

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/

Naked Carrot Jockeys

From the Cake Wrecks  blog. They’re all good, but my favorite is Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockeys.

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/

Gregor

Don’t you hate when this happens to you?

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/

The Dictator’s Statue, and Handling Power

BLVR: I read an interview you did in 1979 in which you made a compelling comment about the split between literature and philosophy. You said: “For example, Rilke, I suppose my favorite writer really, and in the best sense a profound writer, is full of shit. I mean, his ideas are nonsensical. As philosophical notions I have no respect for them at all, but as poetic notions they are absolutely beautiful.”

WG: Well, that’s similar to my experience with Plotinus or sacred texts—you may not share the worship side or belief side. I remember the first time I was visiting Florence, in the monastery buildings where the Fra Angelicos are on the monks’ cells. And looking at these paintings, which are so incredible, and knowing that you recognize that the painter who painted these was, unlike many of the painters, totally  devout. Totally presenting a religious matter in the most serious possible way. And I’m not, so I’m freed in a way also from the subject matter. And what I see is painting—and, my golly,  you know? I miss the power of the two together; there’s no doubt about that. It must be overwhelming for someone who can get both of them—and many people have, in one sort of blow.

As a teacher, it’s a great help to be teaching philosophical systems you don’t believe. You can actually do a better job of presenting them if you leave your beliefs at the door. I particularly dislike the ideas of St. Paul, [ yet ] I think he’s incredibly  wonderful. I mean, what he had to do, and how he did it, it’s just amazing. So it’s like looking at something and seeing a view of the world you don’t share—but what a view. I think it’s a very healthy attitude, actually. It would certainly prevent people from tearing down other people’s religious icons. [ Laughs ] First: Is the dictator’s statue any good  before you pull it down? [ Laughs ]

The above is taken from a November, 2005 interview of William Gass  by Stephen Schenkenberg in the Believer  magazine. As I’ve pointed out a number of times in this blog, I too find points of view that are different from my own to be particularly stimulating and often both valuable and useful.

Later in their dialogue:

BLVR: In the introduction to the book The Writer in Politics, you wrote: “Putting writers in prison is preferable to putting them upon a pedestal. Giving an author influence is like giving him poison. His pen begins to froth at the nib. He not only continues to manufacture baloney, he begins to eat it himself.” Has the life you’ve led here—what seems like a fairly low-key Midwestern life—been connected to your concern for pedestals or status?

WG: Yeah. You can have skepticism of popularity, renown, fame, as I have, yet if you find yourself in that position suddenly, it’s hard to ward off the result. You can be quite reclusive. Faulkner was. But winning the Nobel Prize, for instance, has destroyed many a career. [ Laughs ] And it certainly didn’t help his. And the sense of “I’ve got it made,” or “My life has  been justified; it is now verified”—it isn’t. We all know Aristotle was right: money, fame, and so forth are external goods; they guarantee nothing. But it’s very hard, nevertheless, to resist them, if you’re surrounded with this. I think one reason why second- and third-generation rich people have a better chance of handling their money is that they get used to it. Academics in political power are dangerous. Because they don’t understand handling power. They can talk  about it [ laughs ], but that’s so completely different. Or if you get in the mind-set of being important, having influence, not only does it affect your work, it can lead this to Hemingway competition, as if it were a boxing tournament. And it isn’t that sort of competition at all.

We all know about baloney in the art world.

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/

No Other Thing

The definition of “realism” is a wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it. Besides, “How Fiction Works” has already addressed this issue, in a brilliant response to the French critic Roland Barthes on the subject of detail’s role in fiction. Wood’s conclusion is that a well-deployed detail causes a reader to react both specifically (the virtue of any given thing is that it is no other thing) and variously (any given thing calls a wealth of associations to mind).

The paragraph, above is taken from a review  written by Gideon Lewis-Kraus, of James Woods’s book, How Fiction Works.  I like thinking about that one paragraph with reference ( not intended by Lewis-Kraus ) to photography — “the virtue of any given thing is that it is no other thing.”

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/

Mean Reviews

It’s worthwhile reading reviews in a calm, dissociated way, especially if you don’t yet have much experience with reviews. I have written before about how, on several occasions, one of my grad students or postdocs has gotten reviews back and has been devastated by how negative they are. I look at the same review comments and think “This is a great review! These are nice comments!”. You can’t expect reviews to tell you that you are brilliant and that your science is perfect. Reviews are intrinsically critical, and if the system works as it is intended, this criticism will improve your work and your writing and help you publish the best paper possible.

That quote is taken from today’s post on the FemaleScienceProfessor’s blog. It should be read, in its entirety, by everybody who is unhappy about critiques they’ve gotten at Photo.net, or anywhere else that offers critical feedback of ones work.

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/

Should

The Online Photographer, Mike Johnston, recently had a post titled, “Should You Love Your Camera?”.

The word “you” in his question seems to refer to oneself. Please. Mike, what are you saying? Here in the U.S. of A. the word “should” is used exclusively to refer to *other* people.

‘Do’, ‘am’, ‘will’, ‘have’ – are words for self-reference. ‘Should’ is not. Next thing he’ll be suggesting that we use ‘uncertain’, ’self-doubt’ or even ‘guilt’ about our own selves. * shudder *

Near the end of the comments to the post, Ken Tanaka notices how the previous respondents have avoided the word ’should’:

Posters seem to be answering a different question than what Mike actually posed. They’re answering “Do I Love My Camera?” Although the answers have been entertaining that’s not what Mike asked. He asked, “SHOULD You Love Your Camera?”

See? DO is a good red-blooded American word. None of this namby-pamby, pinko commie ’should’ stuff.

-Julie

http://www.unrealnature.com/