random thoughts on what i've been reading

Bataille says: Writing's always only a game played with ungraspable reality.

I dig this. A lot. Isn't writing--realist or not--an attempt to understand reality by creating another reality? Or rather: My writing is an attempt for me to understand reality by creating a non-reality, a non-realistic reality, a reality grounded not in the real but in truth, as I know it best.

Bataille says: I can't abide sentences... Everything I've asserted, convictions I've expressed, it's all ridiculous and dead. I'm only silence, and the universe is silence. / The world of words is laughable. Threats, violence, and the blandishments of power are part of silence. Deep complicity can't be expressed in words.

I am complicit, but even in stating my complicity is to undermine it. Make it less real. Then, when written, does the real become less real or more real? Or can the real ever be written? Would all realities written be nothing more than simulations--in Baudrillard's sense of the word--no matter how faithful to reality it is?

I have no real issue with this. I don't work in realism, but I wonder how realists would respond to this. Thinking in these terms, it all feels pretty futile.

new review

The ever brilliant John Madera reviews Changing at The Collagist.

Feeling good?

I spent all of yesterday (minus time to eat) editing, and I have to say: I'm really proud of this collection. There are some damn fine stories in it. Is this a bad thing to think? Should I, as a writer, feel down on my writing? I hope not.

Then again, the crushing defeat of rejection wouldn't feel so bad if I didn't feel so good, right?

But of course, I'm still in the Honeymoon high phase, where I think everything is brilliant. In six months, I'll wish it was in a box, being burned, with some potatoes roasting underneath, that way, there will be some semblance of value or worth to those wasted pages. But I'm being melodramatic. As always.

something to think about

"The real is produced from miniaturised units, from matrices, memory banks and command models--and with these it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times. It no longer has to be rational, since it is no longer measured against some ideal or negative instance. It is nothing more than operational. In fact, since it is no longer enveloped by an imaginary, it is no longer real at all. It is a hyperreal, the produce of an irradiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace without atmosphere." --Baudrillard

on pretense

I've been thinking about pretentiousness a lot lately too. Mostly because I fear I'm pretentious but also because there has been a spike in the pretentiousness index around me lately. So I wonder: wtf?

Pretense is the act of giving false appearance. Ok. That makes sense. As a teacher-professor-professional, there's always a certain degree of acting. I have to give a false appearance. It's part of the job. Maybe not. But I don't think of myself as a "commanding" figure, one who "commands" respect, so I "act" in order to get it. This is, in no small part, because of my size, age, race, gender, etc. I've been cultured to be "small" and those who are "small" don't "earn" respect. It's a screwed up system, one that I'm working to change, even if it's only within the confines of my own classrooms.

Pretentious, however, is defined as making unjustified or excessive claims. That goes way beyond pretense.

But why are people pretentious? To me, the obvious answer is insecurity. So then, Person A is pretentious--making an unjustified or excessive claim--to Person B so that Person B knows that Person A is legit. Is it that simple? But clearly, Person A isn't legit, and Person B is a fool to fall for it.

This is getting complicated. I guess my question is: Why bother? Of course, I'm as guilty as anyone else. In general, I think I'm not a particularly pretentious person, but once people start asking about writing--or rather, my writing--my voice changes. I become some cross between pretentious and awkwardly shy. These "ums" and "likes" pop up everywhere. I don't know. I think this is going no where. Well, then. Yeah.

PEN/Beyond Margins Announced

It's official: PEN/Beyond Margins.

Hooray!

I'll have a post on contests as a concept forthcoming...

on virtual friendships

i've been thinking a lot about virtual friendships. html giant had this posting recently asking if people were friends with writer/artist types, and that got me thinking about virtual friendships and why they're so attractive.

growing up, i didn't have a lot of friends, but i very much so wanted to be social. i wanted it so badly that i began to gossip, telling all my family friends anything & everything i knew, regardless of how it affected others. i was fairly young then, maybe 5-7. maybe younger. the point is, though, i understood that people would give me attention if i had something to give them. this legacy of unhealthy notions of friendship has followed me.

throughout high school & most of college, i--like most young women--flirted my way into friendships. and yes, duh, women flirt with women. it's socially acceptable. it's socially desirable. these are things i enacted without being conscious.

now, though, i'm more aware. does that change things?

but back to virtual friendships: what is it that makes them so attractive? well, the most obvious answer is that people are looking for validation, and if they can't find it in the "real" world, they look for it in the "virtual" world. people who are socially awkward in "reality" can have huge followings "virtually." besides, if you're actively blogging, facebooking, etc. etc. etc., when do you find time to be social? (of course, there is a balance.)

here's something that sucks: many people rely on the virtual world because they're unaccepted in the real world. the virtual world just gives people an opportunity to be doubly rejected. man, rejection sucks.

here's the hitch though, what happens when virtual world & social world intersect? that is, when you meet your virtual friend in real life... over the years, most of my writing friends (with a few exceptions: frances, kirsten, michael... well, now kirsten & michael are virtual friends since we don't live in the same place) have been virtual friends. when we (writer virtual friends) correspond, i don't mind being utterly vulnerable with them, mostly because i know i'll probably never meet them, and if i do, it's at AWP or some conference where there's no time to really talk anyways. except when there is. interactions that were once smooth, intelligent, smart, funny, and so on become stilted, awkward, filled with gaps. why? well, obviously, we're used to technology mediating our friendship. we're used to having time to think, be witty, whatever.

here's the other thing: when we type and email or whatever, the person on the other side is still a mystery. we just see an email address, a name. maybe we've read their book or stories or poems. we have a romantic sense (not as in romance, i want to sleep with you, but romance as is archetypal) of the other person. when we're confronted with a real person on the other side for the first time, of course, there's bound to be disappointment, and not just physically.

next, no matter how quick virtual interactions are, even with chatting, i'd argue that all virtual interactions are one-way. there is no real "conversation." i type something. send. you type something. send. but that "send" takes away the "conversation." there person on the other side may or may not be there. may or may not be real. may or may not be genuine, but none of that matters because i've sent "send." it could go anywhere. (i haven't really thought this part through. there are holes, i know.)

anyways, &now is coming up. i'm excited to see old friends (who i actually know) and meet new old friends (whom i've never met). i guess this post is a precursor to that.

i haven't blogged much over the past few months, but i'm back. say hello to lily, virtual world.