Category: Study (the world/the craft)

Note: I’m picking on poetry here because of all forms, it is the most elusive. But my following comments could be applied to art in general.

Maybe because I was looking for a reason to give up on what had already proven to be an unfortunate read, but this section of The Book of Lazarus frothed all the ill-will I had toward (most) poetry:

I have seen that there is no predetermined direction to the birth of a word, that words move across the page like beams of random light moving through immense voids of wandering flares. Poems are built like jewels. (pg 434)

Really?

Explaining what poetry is with poetic language is cyclical and confusing. I do appreciate the meta aspect of doing this (truly, I do. See here). But defining an elusive concept with further metaphor doesn’t help to define anything. Yes, the above example is from a fiction text, so the reader should rightfully assume that the definition is more about developing a character than about providing an accurate definition of poetry. However, it seems this flowery style is exactly what demonizes poetry in the mind of the casual (possibly conservative) reader. The common conception of poetry is that it is easy and anyone can do it. There is an “all is right, nothing is wrong, so be yourself” therapeutic hippy aspect associated with poetry. Which is why I don’t count poetry as one of my favorite forms, despite my above understanding of any possible misconception or untruth; the stink is quite potent.

I’ve reached a point in my writing study where I am tired of intangibles (and I’m not the only one). I want repeatable data. I want the art effect to be measurable. I want to know that word x would elicit reaction y when audience = b and author = a. Can art be scientifically approached? I really want to say yes; we simply haven’t the capacity to do so yet. So, in my dream of measured effect, the above description of poetry elicits one thing well: vomit.

Xword causes Yreaction when audience = b and author = a

The first step in a measured effect would be to assign a value to both b and a. This, I understand, is both the first step and the impossible step (impossible, as we currently understand ourselves as a species). The author does not always understand his intentions, and even more-so, does not always know his audience. In a perfect world, an author will come to a story, poem, anything with years of self-awareness along with an understanding of his audience for that specific work. Perhaps this is why most authors get better the more they write, and why most authors don’t peak until middle-age or after.

Matchbook Lit mag has something good going. They require authors to post critical analyses of their work alongside the work itself. An artist’s statement, so-to-speak. This is important. This is likely necessary to keep writing respected in a world where anyone with an internet connection can post any drivel at any time to potentially hundreds of thousands of readers. In other words: just because someone can type and share words, does not mean he should. The artist’s statement proves that there is at least honest intent behind the writing.

The bottom line is this: relying on interpretation makes for lazy artists. The burden of art should never be hoisted entirely upon the critic. Doing so creates a false formula, where a and/or b is missing. The more therapeutic hippy drivel out there, the less respected writing becomes. Simple.

And for all those university professors and doctors out there, who, I know, wrestle with this dilemma daily, think about this: how much easier would it be to acquire arts funding if we were able to rationalize the dollars with measured results?

There still exists a romanticized version of The Bar, one whose sparse patrons restrain rich histories with liquor and silence. But by the aid of free rounds and a free ear, those histories spill. The romanticized bar is a smoky place of bonds melded by story.

It has been my experience that more often the romantic bar mirage gives way to a sad reality, one of loud, obnoxious chatter with radio-friendly (re: conversationally-unfriendly) music pumped in to dilute any intellectual connection in favor of the visual/physical. Here, women dress as disco balls in hopes of MySpace photo ops. The real bar is a smokeless place of subverted and repressed stories.

This isn’t a case of Norman Rockwell nostalgia; it cannot be. I am not ready to quit the dream.

How to make a bar better, while maintaining profit (warning: to make this happen, compromises have been made):

1. The jukebox

Perfection: If a song has the words booty, bling, cowboy, ass (in a sexual conquest sense) or is by Nickelback, remove it from the jukebox.

Compromise: Turn the music down a smidge. The relatively recent introduction of internet-abled jukeboxes satisfies my need for bar-perfect spots like Waits, Cave, Boxcar Saints, and Bauhaus…yes, Bauhaus. So, if the trash is quieter, then maybe the sensible among us can talk over it.

2. More jukebox

Perfection: free jukebox! Give out a song token with each drink purchased, thereby rewarding those who buy a lot of the bar’s product.

Compromise: Lower the prices of the internet-abled jukebox songs. Or at least, allow each purchased song to remain in the jukebox harddrive, so that subsequent purchases are done at the standard song rate. I understand this restriction may be a song rights issue. If so, simply lowering the prices will do just fine.

3. Books n’ such

Perfection: Book up the place. There’s a bar in north Kansas City, Mickey’s, I think it is, that has walls filled with books. I suffered a New Year’s Eve there once, and spent the night coveting a bound collection of Camus writings that sat imprisoned behind crepe paper streamers and balloons, slowly deflating, as was I. All I wanted was to silence the crowd and free the book. I would have purchased liters of beer to do so.

Compromise: Sell the books. Sell more than just beer and shitty food. Sell coffee. Sell cigars.

4. Smokeable

Perfection: Let people smoke. I’m not a smoker – aside from a cigar here and there – but I love smokers. There’s an implied social need with smokers, a personality befitting conversation. Now, I understand smoking bans have all but extinguished indoor smoking. But like with most good things, there are loopholes available. A place near me, The Keyhole, has claimed a “club” status, and charges “members” a nominal membership fee ($1 per year, or something amazing like that). Once equipped with the club designation, patrons are free to smoke away. If you don’t want to be around smoke, don’t go/work there. Simple.

Compromise: Divide the establishment into smoking and non-smoking sections, or have smoking and non-smoking hours/days. I’d be interested to see this happen on a small scale as a test for possible wider adoption. Do the patrons/workers like/dislike the set-up? Are the shifts confusing to patrons? What is the profit difference between times of smoke and times of ban.

Who’s with me?

Everybody seems to want something to shake dust and mold from assumed stagnant foundations. Ask any independent literary webzine editor what she wants and the words “original” and “new” will inevitably nestle into the response. This original and new work may come by way of various splintered isms, for better or worse.

Literary isms sprout often, and lately it seems that so many of them tout the same anti-mainstream agenda. From Brutalism to The Offbeat Generation to self-depreciative referents like Joseph Ridgwell’s fictional The Shambleists, angst against the establishment propagates widely. I get it, I truly do. I’m for it. But if everything is new, will there be anything left for academia to latch onto in order to generate necessary conversation regarding trends? This is a genuine question, in want of discussion.

The role of academia is to legitimize underground isms and propagate discourse about their work in order to better understand the limitations and potential of a society. The Beats, for example, came to prominence in the 1950s and only later got their own canons and college courses. What started as a small group of kids riding a mix of angst, drugs, and pens, swelled into something widely appreciated and of understood importance. From Ism to study to understanding; this is the process.

But what is now? Are we at a time when nothing is intriguing us enough as an underground collective to warrant the future attention of academics? Should I be worried that if every story is new, then a lack of structure won’t support such future conversation? Are we too splintered to be someday taken seriously by the larger community?

Or am I just nearsighted and suffering the egotistical impression that my generation is experiencing something unique? During the lead up to The Beats’s mid-century prominence, were there dozens of other, similar underground trends that either died away or congealed into what we know today as The Beats?

I’m worried that yes, we are too splintered and that yes, the coming generation lacks focus. Though I believe in a survival of the fittest mentality when it comes to contextualizing trends, I still fear that a choking ‘anti’ mentality is keeping us from searching for answers, and instead is allowing us to too easily dismiss everything.

Also:
What happens to the splinters once they get legitimized by academia? Do they abandon their original anti values in favor of widespread acceptance, or do they simply try to redefine what it means to be “underground?”

If someone like Stephen King wrote a piece fitting to an underground ism’s mission, would he (and his massive audience) be accepted or would he be shunned?