The medium really is the message?

I had a weird moment of realization today. I was watching CP24, hoping for any news update to the strike, and the story was about the mayor’s announcement today that more building permits will be processed, up to 500 by the end of the month. To ‘illustrate’ the story there was a video clip – a close-up of a hand hammering a nail into some sort of wooden structure. I was thinking how funny it is that they must have video clips for all sorts of stories, catalogued somehow so that the editors or directors or whoever decides these things can find an appropriate one for any kind of story. I find it funny because a picture of nails being hammered into wood doesn’t strike me as necessary when doing a story on building permits – I know what building permits entail, and even if I don’t know or can’t picture it, an image of actual ‘building’, no matter how on-point and illustrative, doesn’t add anything to the story. And yet, stock footage like this is used all the time.

Then it occurred to me that I do the same thing on my blog, and so do many other bloggers. I can’t decide whether this is a sign of a universal and inherent form of thought that we think is the best way to illustrate stories – whether with a picture or a video, do we feel that text isn’t enough to get our point across? Are we that limited by language that we use a picture or video to set up or establish what we’re trying to describe with our text?

Or is the creation of blogs, and this apparently universal format, just a product of all of us watching the same television news programs since childhood? Has television –in this case specifically television news – implanted itself in the way our minds work so deeply that, even when presented with a blank canvas and the opportunity for unlimited creativity, we are still limited by what newsroom editors in Washington or London or Toronto think is the best way to present news? When extrapolated beyond blogging, it’s a disturbing thought.

This is the first personal and non-strike thing I've written since it started. I don't feel like going back and editing it for typos and continuity and whatnot, so if there are any errors, that explains it. I'm just procrastinating when I should be applying for jobs. I had a job, or I guess I technically still do have a job. And one that I like, too. I'm just not allowed to do it right now so I'm forced to apply for other jobs. That's really annoying.

On history and aging writers

I'm about 80 pages into American Pastoral. A couple of thoughts. I don't know if you remember, but he finished the Counterlife with letters between Nathan and Maria about him creating her as a character, and her writing to him that 'pastoral' settings don't suit him (Zuckerman, at least) as a writer and he turned the characters in England into open anti-Semites because he needs the controversy and conflict that it produces. I find it funny that Roth finished one novel describing pastoral settings in literature as unsuitable for himself and then uses that as the title in his next one. It's pretty clear where AP is heading - I mean, the title of the first section is 'Paradise remembered' - and the way he's establishing Swede Levov and then introduces the story about Merry throwing the bomb, it'll be something along the lines of 'pastoralism lost'. But I like the thematic continuity. Says a lot about him as a writer, as if finishing with those thoughts in The Counterlife developed into the plot for American Pastoral.

Using the school reunion as a story-telling device works well too, and it's also kind of funny (for me, at least) because it makes me think of Skvorecky. His last novel (Ordinary Lives) uses 2 school reunions (25 & 50 years, I think) to frame the flashbacks and kind of tie together old stories told in his previous novels. It's interesting to see 2 aging writers, whose works I'm fairly familiar with, and who use recurring characters with loosely continuous storylines from novel to novel, use school reunions so prominently in their later novels. You start to get the feeling that nostalgia is an inevitable part of growing old, and for a writer, that means you're not just going to think about high school, but write stories about it too. I wouldn't be surprised if reading I Married a Communist and The Human Stain changes my perspective on this, but that's at least my impression for now.

The conversations Zuckerman has with his former schoolmates - it's really similar to what Skvorecky did, though I have to say Roth pulls it off a little more successfully. Maybe that's just because of the story he's telling, about America in the 60's, has more continuity and relevance for America today than when Skvorecky talks about Communist coups and exile. The Czech Republic today doesn't seem to lean on that past as much as its exiles do, or as much as the United States does, and conversations about Communist theories and political oppression really sound dated, like they're coming out of an isolated past. Of course, the reasons for the differences are obvious - the US didn't have the same clean break that came from the radical political changes as the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe, so there's a more direct line from the 60's to today. And as for the exiles, even if they've gone back to the Czech Republic since 1989, having lived in North America for 30-40 years, they still remember the country they left more strongly than the one they visit. It's just a shame that Skvorecky (like his fellow Czechs here) hasn't moved beyond that more in his writing.

Anyway, my original intention was to point out the similar outlook of two aging writers and comment on how aging affects the way we look at life, and I didn't necessarily set out intending to compare Roth and Skvorecky, but I suppose it's not entirely a waste of time. For both of them, 20th century history plays such a huge role in their characters' lives, even with some cross-over in setting (Prague Orgy), so it can definitely be an interesting and worthwhile exercise.

I don't think that's selfish. We've of course discussed this before, but maybe part of getting older is accepting the inevitability that we're not as unique as we thought when we were younger, and because of this we find that we have less and less to learn from the outside world.

I think about the idea of raising a child, and one thing that's on my mind about it is that there is nothing new you can teach that child - sure, it'll all be new for her or him, but all you can do is spend the first 20 years or so catching them up with what the rest of the world already knows. So from the child's perspective - which in this case is us - as we get older we realize this, and so tend to turn inwards as we age as the world is no longer as fresh and new as it once seemed.

For myself, at least concerning my reading habits, I've found that over the past year or so I take a lot more pleasure in fiction than I used to. I think it's a combination of two things - one, I think I find comfort in seeing a subjective experience of the world that I can relate to - even if it's fictional it's still been conceived and written by a real person. Secondly, I find that I can't concentrate on non-fiction, history, politics like I used to. While they're all interesting and important, at the age of 31 I'm already seeing the world around me repeat itself, and that gets frustrating. As part of getting older, maybe I'm also finding stories more engaging than events, and that the individual is more interesting than the collective. More important? I'll have to think about that one.

On the question of what is art. Beautifully put.


Knowledge can never transform the world,' I blurted out, skirting along the very edge of confession. 'What transforms the world is action. There's nothing else.'

[...]

'There you go!' he said. 'Action, you say. But don't you see that the beauty of this world, which means so much to you, craves sleep and that in order to sleep it must be protected by knowledge? You remember that story of 'Nansen Kills a Kitten' which I told you about once. The cat in that story was incomparably beautiful. The reason that the priests from the two halls of the temple quarreled about the cat was that they both wanted to protect the kitten, to look after it, to let it sleep snugly, within their own particular cloaks of knowledge. Now Father Nansen was a man of action, so he went and killed the kitten with his sickle and had done with it. But when Choshu came along later, he removed his shoes and put them on his head.

What Choshu wanted to say was this. He was fully aware that beauty is a thing which must sleep and which, in sleeping, must be protected by knowledge. But there is no individual knowledge, a particular knowledge belonging to one special person or group. Knowledge is the sea of humanity, the field of humanity, the general condition of human existence. I think that is what he wanted to say.

Now you want to play the role of Choshu, don't you? Well, beauty -- beauty that you love so much -- is an illusion of the 'other way to bear life' which you mentioned. One could say in fact there is no such thing as beauty. What makes the illusion so strong, what imparts it with such a power of reality, is precisely knowledge. From the point of view of knowledge, beauty is never a consolation. It may be a woman, it may be one's wife, but it is never a consolation. Yet from the marriage between this beautiful thing which is never a consolation, on the one hand, and knowledge, on the other, something is born. It is as evanescent as a bubble and utterly hopeless. Yet something is born. That something is what people call art.'

-- From Yukio Mishima's The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

[and seen by me here]

Some thoughts on reading

I just read the letters from a librarian post about aesthetics, art and philosophy. Well, the most recent one, at least. Pretty fascinating stuff. I wish I had the time to just sit around and think about this sort of thing. I guess it's good that other people do, as long as they share their thoughts and conversations with people like me. Hey, maybe that's the whole value of art, philosophy, even academic studying of humanities - not to live in isolation, but to produce something of value that regular people (at least, non-academics who care about this stuff) can use to improve their own lives, their understanding of the world they live in, and thereby contribute to the overall improvement of human civilization. Not through technological advancement, but through furthering knowledge of civilization itself.

Maybe because I read a lot, I occasionally feel the need to justify it in a more meaningful way than just that ‘I enjoy it’ or ‘I like learning’, so I think about this sort of thing all the time. When I read, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, I can't get away from the mindset that reading should be about more than entertainment or even personal fulfillment. To give meaning to reading, it’s important to discuss what we read, whether facts, ideas, or just beautiful usage of language (poetry, etc), and by doing so to add, in however small a way, to society's understanding of itself. This can happen even if you only share your thoughts with one or two people. If a person fills their brain with knowledge or ideas and doesn't share them, it's a waste, and turns reading into a self-indulgent exercise no different from sitting on the couch watching reality tv shows because any knowledge, insight or understanding gained remains internal and unused. To share ideas it’s not necessary to publish novels or give academic lectures - not at all. Ideas can be shared through simple things like conversations or pointless, rambling blog posts we write while at work (ahem). To quote Jacques Cousteau via Rushmore: "When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life he has no right to keep it to himself."

I have more thoughts on this, like the idea that there are too many voices out there already, so it might be nice if someone just sat and listened and tried to keep track of it instead of just adding to the cacophony (I am a librarian, after all), but I’ll have to think about it some more first.

Albania dusts off ancient treasures

I don't normally associate Albania with ancient Greek and Roman architecture, but really, why shouldn't I? It should be so obvious - Albania's right across the Adriatic from Italy, and right next to Greece. And yet, I'm still amazed at how the political map of today's world can almost completely erase the our consciousness of the historical continuity of civilization. Anyway, pretty cool stuff.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7978443.stm

Reading Proust – Swann’s Way, 2: Struggling with Proust
Page 264, end of Part I.

Well what can I say at this point? In case it’s not obvious already, I’m not an academic, I’m not a writer, I’m a person with a job who reads when I have the time. I read because it offers a subjective view of history, or a close-up view of life that you miss in non-fiction or even, to bring Proust himself into this, because it can be more truthful than reality. So that’s where I’m coming from. And now, onto the book.

Mr. Proust is capable of some beautiful linguistic photography and he has some fascinating reflections on the mind, human interactions, social class, nature, reading, memory, and whatnot. And that’s just in the first 264 pages of a 3000 page novel. It’s a work of genius.

However, I have to say, I’m really struggling to continue. I might just be too distracted by other things going on in my life, or maybe I’m not getting enough sleep, or maybe I shouldn’t have committed to Proust so soon after emotionally exhausting myself on Hrabal, but I just find myself, ok, recognizing his genius as a novelist while struggling to give a damn about what the narrator thinks of hawthorn trees, or his gossipy dying aunt’s routine being thrown off by eating lunch an hour early on Saturdays. If I were in a class where I’m forced to read this, I could come up with some interesting observations and even write a paper about it if I were motivated by a grade. But as a guy with limited free time and a shelf-full of other books I’m thinking about reading, I’m finding it increasingly hard to focus on Swann’s Way. One expectation I had when I started this is that, like War & Peace, reading such an enormous novel I’d over time become increasingly attached to the characters and their stories. But because of the perspective of In search of lost time, you only get to know one character, whose own thoughts on the novel’s events (which aren’t really events per se, but rather his memories of, well, the past). After 264 pages I’m starting to feel like I’ve been stuck in a room with the same person for too long, and I need air, I need other characters with their own lives who aren’t just shadows of this one person’s memory – as vivid as those shadows are evoked. I find myself desiring conversation.

I do have plenty of positive things to say about the novel, however, which is the reason I’m not ready to give up on it just yet. As I said, Proust’s a genius. His physical descriptions, while they can drag on and become tedious, are beautifully written (or, beautifully translated, at least). In general, though, what interests me most are his descriptions of what he calls “the life of the mind” which, “of all the various lives we lead concurrently, is the most episodic, the most full of vicissitudes” (258).

One thing that’s really struck me is the way he presents the relationship between reality and imagination. I’m getting the impression that the narrator is a person who prefers desire for its own purpose over the eventual fulfillment of that desire. Much of the narrative is tied up in reflection and fantasy, that leads to ultimate disappointment when that reality is fulfilled. There are two illustrations of this: when he sees the Duchess of Guermantes in her ancestral church, about whom he’d been dreaming and fantasizing for a while, and is “immensely disappointed” when he sees her in person. He says this disappointment comes from the expectation that she would be an image on a tapestry or stained-glass window, which is how he’d been looking at images of her ancestors in the church. The second illustration is just a line on the nature that surrounds him on his walks: “because reality takes place in the memory alone, the flowers that people show me nowadays for the first time never seem to me to be true flowers (260). I'm not doing a great job of evoking it but it really is amazing stuff.

I was reminiscing recently with a friend I’ve known for 30 years about growing up together, so had our own search for lost time to compare with the novel. Perhaps that could be its own post, or perhaps you’ll just have to fantasize what I could come up with on such a topic, a post which could only disappoint whatever it is you can imagine. I do hope to continue to write about the novel, though, much as Proust’s narrator does, “to appease my conscience and to satisfy my enthusiasm” (255).

There’s obviously plenty more to say about Proust, but I think this is more than enough for now. I’m taking a break from the book today after finishing Part I, but I’ll probably be picking it up again soon enough. I should also confess that I’ve picked up Hrabal again during my break, this time reading him in Czech. I’m not sure if I’ll be posting on that or not yet, but if nothing else it’ll serve as a distraction while I let the memory of reading Proust surpass the act of actually doing so. He’d be so proud of me.

Monty Python - All-England Summarize Proust Competition

As you can see, you just have to go and read the book for yourself. And for the record, I'd have given her the prize, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8rhIw_9ucA

Reading Proust - Swann's Way: 1
About 64 pages in...

Have you ever heard about the scene in Proust with the madeleine? It's about 60 pages in. I just read it, and wow, I'm starting to get what this is all about, especially why you get books like 'Proust and the squid' or 'Proust was a neurosurgeon.' He really has a great way of explaining how memories can be lost and then evoked by certain senses.

I was actually thinking about this quite a bit earlier because it comes after a 50-page memory of how the narrator used to cry for his mother as a child. I didn't find that part very inspiring, but without it this essay or whatnot on memory would not have had the same impact. I was thinking about how I would summarize or explain this to someone who hasn't read the novel, and then it hit me that if we were capable of summing up in a few words what it took a novelist 60 pages to say, the world would have no need for literature. The novel is an art form that expresses a view of human experience in a very specific way, and the only way to get that is to actually read the novel (same goes for any other work of art, I guess). I think that's why I prefer it to straight philosophy - it kind of teaches by example or illustration instead of by theory. Being told "A man died" would not have the same impact on you as if you actually read the story of that man's life, suffering and death, even though the end result is ultimately the same. Kind of like the difference between watching a game and seeing the score in the paper the next day. Maybe that's what makes a book good, or even great - expressing that experience extremely well?

As I anticipate that reading In search of lost time will be quite an adventure, I hope to post more of these quick entries on thoughts I have on the book as I go along, partially to share my thoughts but also just to leave bread crumbs of where I've been over the course of the 2500 pages. We'll see where this leads. I also just read Hrabal's I served the King of England. I'll have to come up with something on that as well.

I've been meaning to start posting thoughts about books I've read, am reading or would like to read, but I'm far too lazy to get to that any time soon, especially considering I'm at work right now, so for now I'll have to content myself with just mentioning the books and getting around to actually writing about them at some point in the near future.

I'm currently reading War with the newts by Karel Čapek. (I'm actually reading it in Czech, so maybe I should put the title as Válka s mloky.)

I just finished Ordinary lives by Josef Škvorecký and The Lazarus project by Aleksandar Hemon.

Indifference - our mother, our salvation, our destruction

From an interview with Josef Škvorecký:

“Today I’d exclude destruction, and I’m not even sure anymore that indifference is our mother. But it is certainly our saviour.” Why, I asked him, does indifference retain its saving power? “If you were not indifferent, in a certain sense, in the days of Nazism or Communism, you would go mad,” he answered. “Because there were so many victims, you accepted it as a hard fact of life. Nobody weeps reading about six million dead, but if you read the story of one concrete, individual person, you can have a rapport with that person’s suffering. The greatness of literature is that it can move you that way.”

I just had a look at my friend J.'s blog (that his form of anonymous friend-mention, which is also suitable for my purposes) for the first time in a while. He has some entertaining, but some interesting and admirable new year's resolutions, one of which is to write more. I really want to make more of an effort to write as well, especially on my blog. I find myself with thoughts that I understand about how I see the world, but when it comes to verbalizing them in conversation they tends to come out as mumbled garbage, something along the lines of "I like boobies" (a profound and important thought but which could be certainly expanded upon and clarified). Writing forces you to organize thoughts into words that are going to sit on the screen in front of you instead of just floating as vague clouds of words that can't be expressed to another person but make sense inside the limited confines of my brain. When it comes to actually putting words onto, er, paper, I always get the feeling that my grasp of the language isn't as good as I pretend or think it is, so I should really work on that. I just wish my computer was in a more comfortable place in the house...

At work we have a resource called the wrongful dismissal database. It is basically a collection of court decisions in cases of people who have been laid off or fired, and it gives examples how much notice and severance the person should receive depending on age, years of service, their position, etc. Once a lawyer asked me to run a couple of searches and was looking at the average notice at the end of each result. I asked him, "So that's what you're looking for, a certain average?" He replied, "Well, it depends what side we're on." I found that statement shockingly revealing because it's something I've often thought about that is a problem with the nature of the law. This was an admission that he's not looking to see what the law actually says about what should be done, but how he can manipulate it in an argument.

A lawyer's job is not to find the truth in a case, it is not to get to the bottom of what a law is really about to make sure that justice is done. Rather, it is to find a law that can be interpreted in a certain way that will enforce the rights of the client. It's no secret that people with money often get away with crimes the rest of us wouldn't because they can afford better legal help than the poor and other non-rich masses. But why is that? It's because when you hire a lawyer, right or wrong, you pay them to convince the judge or jury to interpret the law in a way that favours you. An ideal, which would never happen and, besides, is also open to abuse in pretty obvious ways, would be an independent committee of lawyers who decide each case based on an impartial study of the law. You can still leave room for appeals and complaints because there's always the possibility of a mistrial, but I just think this would be the only way to have equality before the law, rather than have 2 parties representing clients (who are normally paying them) to plead their case, with the result that the one who's more convincing wins. Of course, true impartiality is impossible and there's no reason to go into the reasons my idea won't ever come into existence, but it's an idea that's occurred to me that I thought I'd share in case anyone else (if anyone ever reads this) has an opinion on it.

Yet another serious world issue which is far too complicated, and far too divisive, for me to take a stand either way. I wonder if the residents of Lisbon would like to weigh in on this one.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24386702/

Lambrou said the word lesbian has only been linked with gay women in the past few decades. "But we have been Lesbians for thousands of years," said Lambrou, who publishes a small magazine on ancient Greek religion and technology that frequently criticizes the Christian Church.

A really good article on the differences between American-style charity and the Canadian sense of the common good:

Oprah's Big Give began with 10 contestants, one eliminated each week for failing to pull in enough money for charity and the biggest winner receiving a surprise $1 million purse. Its philosophy is simple, and American: Philanthropy and the private sector, it suggests, can best provide services and solve problems, with the added bonus – and this is important – that they cause no loss of personal liberty.
....
In this country, Canadians still cling – under duress and escalating pressure – to the notion we can be a progressive society through our collective tax dollars. It's an idea being eroded as effectively as the Arctic ice cap and yet, together, we try to offer quality education and medical care, maintain the country's infrastructure and service the citizenry.
....
Although Canadian taxes, particularly corporate taxes, have fallen under both Liberal and Conservative governments, statistics still mark the differences. In 2006, OECD calculations pegged taxes as a portion of GDP at 33.6 per cent in Canada and 25.9 per cent in the U.S. Indices show you get what you pay for. Poverty rates are higher per capita in America, as is infant mortality, while the incomes of the elderly are lower and life expectancy is shorter, etc., etc.

Ya know, I really hate stereotypes. Not making stereotypes, of course. Using stereotypes is much quicker and easier than trying to get to know a whole group of people and judge them all individually. What I hate is when people live up to stereotypes, when you can look at a person and accurately say "you're a lesbian" or "your'e Italian" or something like that.

I don't know why I just thought of that....

Well, I guess we can get that gun now...

And I found this interesting as well:

In what could have been Heston's most audacious Jewish role, the FBI recruited the actor amid the 1993 Waco, Texas, standoff involving David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. Heston was to have played the Voice of God to facilitate negotiations with Koresh, however the plan was never used.

In the interest of killing the last 15 minutes of a Friday, I feel I should share the following story, which is all too true, and happened not so long ago:

So, I'm practically falling asleep at my desk and I decide to get up and go make myself a cup of tea. I go into the kitchen, where we have automated machines - just insert your packet and go - I mean, who's got time to boil water? But I digress. I reached into the drawer containing the English breakfast teas, put it in the machine and waited for 21st century technology bring me the taste of England, all at the touch of a button. As I waited I started to smell something foul, something offensive, something I should not have been smelling - something that I soon realized was nothing but my nemesis - Earl Grey, whose black heart (optimistically dubbed 'Grey' by his legion of supporters) has been marring tea drinking for centuries.

Yes, you heard me, somebody had put packets containing this foul, putrid weed where the English breakfast tea should be. And because both packets are green, I didn't notice until it was, alas too late - for the cup, at least, though thank heavens I managed to stop this horrible process before accidentally tasting the vile drink.

Right now you're probably thinking, "But Michael, how on earth did you resolve the situation? And did you ever get the tea you wanted?" Yes, yes, I managed to survive this scrape with Earl Grey, and I even managed to escape with a cup of English breakfast tea, but that story will have to wait for another day, as writing this has already taken me sufficiently close to five o'clock.

Oww. I mean, how does a person survive this?

And on a slighly related note, there was a big NATO meeting in Romania this week. President Bush gave a speech that honoured the Romanian troops fighting in Iraq for naming their base camp with the necessary symbolism to bring to the forefront the morality of the mission they're currently fighting:

At this moment, 10 NATO nations have forces supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom -- including the "Black Wolves" of Romania's 151st Infantry. This battalion has given their base in Iraq a fearsome name: "Camp Dracula."

I guess this is the kind of image he wants to get across to the Iraqis:

No word yet on how the Germans' camp Hitler is progressing in Afghanistan.

Police on trail of 'fat bandit'

Although victims initially suspected that a man who robbed three banks within 90 minutes yesterday was wearing a fat suit as a disguise, police today say the man really is fat guy.

"We don't believe it's a fat suit," Det. Russ Rairey told thestar.com today.
"We just think he is fat."

Early reports indicated the robber must have been wearing a "fat suit" to disguise his identity.
But police now believe the robber is about 5-foot-9 and 300 pounds. His beard, however, is a fake.

The three robberies are not connected to the violent bank robbery on Sheppard Ave. later in which police shot a suspect.

Police can't say yet how the chubby bandit was able to get around so quickly in order to pull off the three robberies within a five-mile radius.

"He was seen leaving the bank on foot, but he's got to have some mode of transportation," the detective said.

His first stop was a TD Bank at Bayview and Moore Aves., then another bank on Glencairn Ave. and finally a third on Marlee Ave., all in the midtown area.
Police believe the "fat bandit" has pulled more than the three bank heists and the violence has been escalating.

He produced a gun in all three holdups yesterday and staff were all quite shaken.
Police are working with the Canadian Bankers Association on coming up with a reward. They hope to make an announcement sometime next week.