Tag Archives: good writing

catastrophic stories

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Brualitat in Stein [Brutality in Stone] (1961), a collaboration between Alexander Kluge (writer, filmmaker) and Peter Schamoni (filmmaker)
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W.G. Sebald, in his essay “Between History and Natural History: On the literary description of total destruction,” considers the work of West German writer, Alexander Kluge. Kluge’s book, New Stories. Nos 1-18 (1977) takes on the prodigious task of examining the aftermath of the destruction of German cities during World War II. Although it makes use of personal recollections of air attack, interviews with military officials and primary source documents, the book is neither a history in the traditional sense, nor is it a traditional novel. Sebald pays attention to Kluge’s method of presenting this diverse material, arguing that confronting catastrophic experience in writing requires the author to challenge and “break out” of the structure and form of the novel, which “owes its allegiance to bourgeois concepts.”

Here is what Sebald has to say about Kluge’s attempt to account for the experience of living in ruined cities:
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writer as cartographer

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Something about Peter Turchi‘s words resonates with my own research process, which includes, obviously, keeping this blog. (This blog just might be a map of my imagination).

Writing is often discussed as two separate acts–though in practice they overlap, intermingle and impersonate each other. They differ in emphasis but are by no means merely sequential. If we do them well, both result in discovery. One is the act of exploration: some combination of premeditated searching and undisciplined, perhaps only partially conscious rambling. This includes scribbling notes, considering potential scenes, lines, or images, inventing characters, even writing drafts. History tells us that exploration is assertive action in the face of uncertain assumptions, often involving false starts, missteps, and surprises–all familiar parts of the writer’s work. If we persist, we discover our story (or poem, or novel) within the world of that story. The other act of writing we might call presentation. Applying knowledge, skill and talent we create a document meant to communicate with, and have an effect on, others. The purpose of a story or poem, unlike that of a diary, is not to record our experience but to create a context for, and to lead the reader on, a journey.

That is to say, at some point we turn from the role of Explorer to take on that of Guide.

writing life & death

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That was another lifetime. On Sherbourne Road in Detroit, Michigan. We were living there in the aftermath of the so-called Detroit riot of July, 1967–gunshots and looting only two blocks away, on Livernois Avenue, a nightmare cacophony of fire engines, police sirens, random shouts and cries, National Guardsmen with rifles, the acrid smell of smoke, smoldering fires that lingered for days–this “racial tinderbox” of an American city, which was also our home.

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Memory pools accumulate beneath chairs in the waiting areas adjacent to Telemetry. It may be that actual tears have stained the tile or soaked into the carpets of such places. Everywhere, the odor of melancholy that is the very center of memory.
Nowhere in a hospital can you walk without wandering into the memory pools of strangers–their dread of what was imminent in their lives, the wild elation of their hopes, their sudden terrible and irrefutable knowledge. You do not wish to hear the echoes of their whispered exchanges: But he was looking so well yesterday! What has happened to him overnight? You do not wish to blunder into another’s sorrow. You will have all that you can do to resist your own.

speed of life

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I lived on 139th street for a time. Harlem is intense. Lives move at incredible speeds, while appearing to go nowhere at all. I later learned that Big L lived his entire life on my block. He died there, six weeks before his 25th birthday.

(If the video won’t play, click “Watch on youtube”)

In his song “Ebonics,” is the entirety of a kind of Harlem life.

At first it appears that the song is a short dictionary—a brief English-to-“criminal slang” guide–aimed at beginners.

Yo pay attention/And listen real closely how I break this slang shit down

He proceeds through a list:

Weed smoke=lye
Ki(lo) of coke = pie
Lifted=High
Cars=whips
Sneakers=kicks

But as the list goes on it seems that what I am hearing is the story of a day in one life, the parameters of an entire world. A list of words, definitions, everyday objects, places, situations, his body and yours:

Burglary=jook
Wolf=crook
Sweat box = small club
AIDS=germ
Angel dust=sherm
Relax=max
Heart=Tick

This is not a simple list. The cadence of his voice—fast, insistent, yet never out of breath, deliberate, could-go-on-forever, the sound of New York—its energy and intelligence, makes my tick stop at times. This happens especially when his voice rises and speeds until it creates an entire picture, suggests another sound, places me where he is. Example:

The iron horse is the train/And champagne is bubbly

The words on the page, as empty and soundless as they are, still remind me of standing high above the street at the top of an elevated train platform made of crossed metal bars, wood and cement, in the winter. My body is shaking with the wind chill, tipsiness left over from a night out, the force of the train approaching at top speed, and the skyline is glowing. All of this is in those lines, his voice, and the beat.

Listen real closely while Big L breaks it down

sinister resonance

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“Sinister Resonance begins with the premise that sound is haunting, a ghost, a presence whose location in space is ambiguous and whose existence in time is transitory. The intangibility of sound is uncanny–a phenomenal presence both in the head, at its point of source and all around–so never entirely distinct from auditory hallucinations. The close listener is like a medium who draws out substance from that which is not entirely there. Listening, after all, is always a form of eavesdropping.”

Book review coming soon. Stay tuned.

render a thought

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Lev Manovich writes:

People talk about “writing an article” or “working on the article.” (I hate the latter expression – why is playing with ideas referred to [as] “work”?)

 

I am now using “rendering articles” instead. The analogy works well.
Just as with 3D modeling, it can take a while to create the objects (ideas) and position them in a scene correctly (structure of a paper). But once this is done, the rest is just rendering. To make a wireframe (a summary of the ideas) is quick. But to develop these ideas in such a way that a reader can get them, add examples, refine the language etc can take a long time.

 

FYI, when they were making the latest Toy Story 3, it took 7 hours to render one frame. And this is for a rather cartoonish world. Even though they used a render farm.

 

Here are my “rendering specs”:
coming up and refining the basic ideas: 10 to 2 years.
Writing first draft (5,000 article): 3 days.
Revising and refining: a few weeks (a number of rendering passes with time breaks in between).

How come no one explained this rendering timeline to me when I started grad school?!