Insanity.

"But it [addiction to the internet] seems to be an affliction of modern life. In one extreme example in South Korea reported by the media, a couple allegedly neglected their three-month-old daughter, who died of malnutrition, because they were on the computer for up to 12 hours a day raising a virtual child."

Worst Rejection Letter Ever.

Re: FT Inst - English Composition
Division: Humanities
ID# 13129

Thank you for your interest in applying for the above referenced position. There were many fine candidates; however, after a careful review of application materials submitted, the screening committee selected other candidates for further consideration.

We encourage you to apply for future openings for which you may qualify and wish you the best of success in fulfilling your career objectives.

It doesn't say I am a fine candidate, nor does it say the school in question chose better qualified candidates "for further consideration." The letter merely states facts, and then suggests I try again. Considering how I applied for this position in January, and that I will be going to school in the fall, I don't think I will.

Speechwright II

All right it’s 9:40 a.m. on September 15, 2009. I just recorded this dream and I realize that the stupid thing was on hold, so I didn’t get any of it. So I’m going to try again and record it. I think this would be a good story idea. So it’s three friends on the train: one is in military get-up, like 16^th—17^th Century British military get-up, like long overcoat, white like pantaloons and black boots, brown hair, really long nose, this guy is holding a newspaper and reading an article about two brothers that killed themselves over this fortune at this one station that I guess we’re heading to. And it’s me and another guy, the other guy that’s not holding the paper that’s not me, I have no visual on him, I guess I can fill him up later when I write—he’s just not there, really, I can’t get a visual. But we’re sitting like in the cabin of this train, and it’s kind of like an old train, maybe it’s set like in Victorian times, or maybe just for the surrealistic effect I can just put it—um I probably won’t supply a year. But anyway, um… So we get to this station after the trip, and the station is like a bizarre like circus kind of station. There’s lots of Victorian dressed people, women in large hoop-skirts and dresses and lots of feathers and lots of horses, grey, blue, different colored horses, white, um and there’s like rails, like train lines, like those kind of rails, but there’re horses on it like pulling people, and it’s just like practically standing room only. Me and my two friends are walking around, and it’s kind of—the vision’s on me, like I can hardly see my two friends in this part of the dream. So we’re just walking around in a circle in this station. It’s like a covered—it’s indoors, like dark, like artificially lit, and we’ve been going around like the perimeter of this station and just like seeing all of this bizarre Victorian circus-like stuff. Just lots of horses, so many horses, and just people, and my friend holding the newspaper comments—I think it was him—I can’t remember who—but somebody mentions that like all the food has been eaten. And there was like large like plates and bowls that are around the edges or something that just have been completely devoured of food—like meats and stuff like that were once there and it’s just gone. Everything has been eaten. And there are all these people just like on horseback that are just parading around, and we make like a circle around—we make three circles, I think I may have mentioned this already—we make three circles, and suddenly like the train station kind of like opens up---it’s almost like a garage door how it opens up, like this large portion just suddenly just lifts, and there’s green, like lush green land, and blue skies, and like all these people make this exodus out from this train station out into these fields. And so that’s the, it looks like we’re going to follow them, and I’m kind of following them, but my two friends they make a sharp left before they actually leave the train station. So I’m following, I kind of step outside and then I turn and realize that they’re kind of over there so I kind of follow them. So I follow them out through another doorway that’s open off to the left of this large opening, it’s not too far. But like it’s just kind of a door way, and it opens off onto this landing. The landing’s like probably twice the size of my room or something like that—it’s kind of big, but it’s not too big. And it looks like, at first it looks like the landing is like completely solid wood and me and my friend the friend that doesn’t have the newspaper he’s we kind of step of towards the edge of the landing and look off to where the people are going, like these large kind of like a carnival or festival or picnic—some party going off beyond in the distance, like white tents and stuff are there. And um so, so we’re kind of busy doing that, and I guess the dream switches to third person now because even though I can see it it’s like I’m not there. It’s a really weird experience. But so I’m kind of doing that with my companion while this guy gets—Oh wait before I do that—I definitely have to clear this up in writing. But before I do that, like before I follow my companion who immediately does what I just described, I kind of like look over the edge of the landing that’s part of the cover of the train station, like this abandoned part of the train station, and I see two guys in the shape of a 69: one’s like holding a gun to other guy’s foot, and the other guy’s holding another gun to the other guy’s foot, so it’s like, kind of like this weird circle with holding guns um or they’re kind of rotting. The guns are like blunderbusses, they’re like really old like pistols, um and the guys are just they’re rotting. They’re not complete skeletons yet, but they are in the process of decomposing. And the pistols—the blunderbusses—are like rusted, and it’s just that weird circle. And they’re kind of indented into the soft, brown earth of the train station. I turn around and I say well this has got to be the spot because the image that I saw is in the photo of the newspaper in the newspaper article, I remember that from the train station, I have to remember to put that in writing. So I see that and the guy gets really excited, and he’s like searching—the guy with the newspaper was searching for the spot based on what the newspaper was saying, he’s kind of like flipping back and forth so he finds the spot. He starts cutting with some kind of knife or something like that, he starts cutting. It was like wood before but it’s kind of like he’s cutting through cardboard. It kind of weird it switches to like cardboard and there’s this green design like um the part that he’s cutting, it’s kind, it’s hard to describe, it’s circular like a like in comics those um the voice bubbles, it’s kind of shaped like that. And there’s like some woman or something, it could be an ad for fruit, but it’s green and it covers the spot liberally. So what happens is he cuts through that part and so he’s cutting through that part, and he cuts like a shoebox size piece through this cardboard woodish type surface on the landing, and me and the other guy is looking out to the fair during this time. And he’s cutting out, and he’s screaming he’s found it, and it’s difficult for him but he like kind of pulls out the box which is like kind of the same size—I don’t know he can’t peel back the top of it for some reason. The top is like stuck on it. But he kind of like somehow pulls out the box from underneath like he’s pulling out from a slit, but he actually cut a hole. It’s kind of weird. I might have to fix that. But he pulls out the gold. It’s a box. It’s like a shoebox size box. This whole time he’s like screaming like ridiculously, he’s found it nobody else has found it and he like opens up the box like kind of tears it open, which the box seems to also be made out of this weak kind of wood or cardboard, and he pulls it out and there’s like gold bars, but it’s not like the Fort Knox bars that you get, but like they look like chocolate bars, basically. They wrapped around in white like See’s candy, but the edges are gold like, it’s like a chocolate bar with gold filling or something. I don’t know that’s kind of what it looks like. And he’s like pulling out—what’s he doing? He’s like lifting them up, and the gold is like staining his hands, and it’s kind of like a reddish brown like chocolate would stain. Maybe it’s chocolate, I don’t know. But um he’s pulling it out, and it’s staining his hands but it’s not losing shape, it’s kind of weird, like they’re marked—like marked bills would do. And he’s holding them and he’s screaming to us that he’s found the treasure nobody else has found it, this was largely been ignored, it was y’know, it’s y’know, there’s nothing, nobody wanted this, or I don’t know. He’s just excited, he’s ecstatic, his face is completely in the throes of like ecstasy, he’s found something, he’s become rich. Whatever it is, he’s just completely lost in this, and he’s just screaming to us. We don’t seem to hear him and we’re still on the landing, so and it’s just me and that other guy—the nondescript guy—just looking out onto this field, and um then he, then what happens is, like for some reason I turn around for and I turn and there’s nobody there on the landing where like, he was kind of at our backs obviously, and when I turn around he’s not there, and I say, I turn to my friend and I’m like where did ______ go? He had a name, and I said a name in my dream, I just can’t remember what that name was. I said where ______ go? And the guy kind of like shrugs and looks completely disinterested—still don’t get a visual on his face even though I’m talking to him, and he kind of like turns and looks off into the fair and stuff, and I sort of do the same. And the dream kind of ends, with that guy and he’s inside the part, he’s inside the landing, and he’s holding that gold, and his eyes are kind of closed, and his face is kind of in bliss, but it’s kind of dark with some kind of weird inner light for the omniscient third that I can see. But he’s trapped inside and the part that he has cut in—the shoebox size part—has been sealed up, but with a like blank, clean cardboard so you could still see the edges of the um fruit around it, like the fruit design or whatever that was like the green edges are still around it and the design isn’t complete. It’s like if you had a cloth with a design, cut it out, cut out a portion of it, and then sown something white—it’s like the design isn’t complete but it’s still around it. That’s kind of how it is. So it’s something noticeable but me and my friend don’t notice or don’t care or whatever, and that’s kind of like how the dream is, he’s trapped inside with the gold and the thing has been sealed up fresh, and that was the dream. So obviously I have to fix some things when I listen to this again later, hopefully I caught everything. I think I might have said it a little faster than I did the first time, um, but, um I hope I can remember the kind of like the feel of especially like the circus at the station, and I’ll just supply I kind of missed like the names, and that’s it. I hope you can turn this into a story, Omer. That’s… end of tape.

Things Are Happening.

Oh blog, let me count the ways I have been neglecting thee:

1. I have not published anything on you.

That's it. This is not to say that I have been doing nothing since the last time I posted, because I have been somewhat busy.

First of all, I have been working for the last week of February and the first two weeks of March. I am such a regular there that everyone at work wonders why I am not hired there full time. I only nod and smile, or shrug my shoulders at the suggestion. Being a temp is not fun.

On the Ides of March, I finished that previous exercise started in September of last year. I am not sure if I would like to post the full story here, but I think I should post my recording of the dream, if only to elucidate my previous post on language. I shall try to do that soon.

I also have had issues with my car. Last week, on my way to work, something had happened as I passed through the gate leading out of my community. I drove through the gate and heard a snap; I looked over to discover that the side view mirror on the passenger side had been broken off, and was literally hanging by a thread (of wires). I got that fixed two days ago, but I have been struggling with the homeowners association to figure out if the accident was my fault or if the gate had closed on me. The homeowners association said they would check the cameras and get back to me... they have not yet. Oh well, what the hell.

Lastly, and the probably the biggest news, I have been accepted by the University of Tulsa for their doctoral program in English. I am set to go visit the campus at the end of March. This comes as a huge relief (though almost undoubtedly I shall complain in the future) given that I have spent two years struggling to find work or get into school. The only other school I applied to was the University of Miami, and I have not yet heard from them. In all likelihood I will go to Tulsa this fall, but I have until April 15 to decide.

So blog, please do not be upset that I have been neglecting you: things are happening.

Another Exercise

I'm almost done with that other exercise (my dream story), but in the meantime I present to you an exercise assigned by a friend in New Jersey. The limit was 500 words, and the theme was "empty glasses." In twenty minutes, this is what I came up with (strangely enough it is exactly 500 words):

The Empty Glass

The empty glass stood there like an accusation. It must have held something once. There was a multitude of possibilities of what the glass held, why it held it, for whom, and when it was once filled. The permutations were mind-boggling. And thus it accused him, he who was staring at the glass and thinking of the possibilities.

What if it hadn’t held anything? The thought made him smile one of those shy, sly smiles that only can be seen in the eyes at the right angle when the light was just perfect. Not too dark; not too light. If the glass had held nothing, as it was holding now, then there wouldn’t be a problem, would there? There was no plot, no story, just a stasis that was as endless as the possibilities of what the glass should have held had it held anything.

No. The glass held something. He was sure of it. He couldn’t succumb to this overwhelming urge to reduce everything to some kind of inductive nihilism that, once it was injected into the mind like some kind of cocaine laced heroine, was as addictive and necessary as the air itself, as the water that was only just one possibility of what was once held in that air-filled vacuum that stared at him back, accused him totally, made him cringe at all the infinitudes he ever read about—the worlds within words within worlds. Everything. Everything and nothing was in that glass now, and everything and nothing was in that glass once. He stopped his eyesmile.

Was there residue? Prima facie there were no apparent markings that could indicate what, if anything, the glass had held. There were no water marks, no evaporated soda residue, no faint whiff of dried up vodka. He could easily—the empty glass was within reach—lift the glass and inspect it closely to ensure the accuracy of his initial observations, but there was something sacrosanct about the glass, as if it had become some kind of dead idol in a temple of long ago where the glass would hold the libations for gods that no one worshipped anymore nor cared about nor thought even existed. The glass had become an artifact.

But why? Why was he here staring at the glass, staring at the base of it to see if there were water marks on the oaken unvarnished desk which propped up the glass as Atlas propped up the globe in ether-filled space? The possibilities here were infinite. There were more explanations than he wanted to enumerate, and they were all as empty to him as the glass was void of liquid. But there was the gas. Surely air filled the glass now. It existed. But some things, he suddenly felt in the back of his spine as if it had been injected there, existed and yet were empty. This epiphany shot up to his mind and emptied it of everything that he was thinking about.

The glass accused him.

More Thoughts on Writing

Writing used to be an art. I do not mean "writing" the idea, but "writing" the physical act. Scribes and scriveners, illuminated manuscripts and calligraphy: writing was done with such care and precision that every word mattered, down to each letter. It was a painstaking and expensive process; a single mistake and the whole page had to be redone.

This attitude is completely gone now. The computer has made writing easier, so much so that I doubt anyone enjoys the act of putting pen to paper, let alone the curves of a letter. With this ease comes a lax attitude towards a word's appearance, which transforms (quite easily) to a carelessness for the word, which would then lead to an ambivalence to the idea which the word represents.

Of course, that series does not necessarily logically follow. I simply notice this trend. Simply because a writer cares about the appearance of a letter or word does not entail that he cares any more for the idea behind the word than one who is not so focused on appearances. Many scribes and copyists did not know the languages they were writing in and therefore did not have the slightest idea of what they were reproducing. So caring for the looks of a word does not always mean an interest in language, but it still means something.

The writer's interest in the font and style of individual letters and words belies the social condition the writer is in: those that read would like to look at beautifully written language because they want the written word to physically reflect the ideas the words represented. That is the attitude I am most concerned about, and it is one that I believe is obsolete. There is no effort in making language look beautiful because it is so easy to make it look consistent and nice. I do not know of anyone that concerns himself with which font to use, or has a favorite font or style of writing. I do not know if calligraphy is even offered in school anymore. Words are merely tools now, tools that convey messages or one's meaning without making the reader stop to think about the words themselves. Even in fiction, where writing (the idea) is at its highest form of art, the word is simply a unit to produce an effect, emotion, thought, or (dare I say it?) a lesson. The actual words themselves--their appearance and style--is inconsequential. These are simply cast off as aesthetic choices, with no function beyond the form.

This is not to say that I am against the ease and consistency of typing from computers. The printed word is easier to read than handwriting (but handwriting used to be beautiful when it was the most convenient form of communication), and, for writing professors and publishers, it must be a huge relief to have something consistent and legible. But the trade-off to this ease is that it is now extremely difficult to put your stamp on the English language. Your choice of how you want your writing to look is relegated to what font selection is available. That, in a way, is a sad loss.

I note this not for any desire to go back to those medieval days where secluded monks spent hours upon hours copying books and illuminating manuscripts, but simply for my select readers to think about the looks of things, and whether the appearance should reflect what is beyond its face. We should do so because--and these thoughts sometimes occur to me--I believe that an attention to detail demonstrates an attention to the general. This is not always true, but if you can show that you care that much for something, then you must care about the larger picture. It is difficult to have a clean room if you do not know how to organize it or do not know what to do with the trash.

Again, these are just thoughts, things that float around in my head that are imperfect, wishful, and not necessarily useful.

Happy holidays.

Here We Go Again...

On Thursday I finished my first application for graduate school. I applied to the University of Miami. I delayed doing this longer than I had intended, and, as a result of that, I think one of my letters of recommendation will arrive late. C'est la vie.

This will not be the only application I do for Fall 2010: I have yet to complete Tulsa's application, and I'm supposed to look into the University of Washington at Seattle. I doubt I can afford applying to any more schools at this point, but if any of you have any suggestions for someone who wants to study James Joyce, please let me know, and I will be happy to look into it.

For this reason, I decided that it would be beneficial to post my personal statement (which I've already sent to the University of Miami) just to see if anyone would give me some feedback. As this is my second go-round for applying, I'm tinged with desperation and willing to go farther than I did last year to get into a school. Somehow, through no fault of my own, school has become my life. So, without further ado, my personal statement:

“Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes.”

This quote from Ovid’s Metamorphoses precedes the beginning of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It refers to Dædalus, the father of invention, so to speak, and it translates to “And he applies his mind to obscure arts.” The quote is pregnant with meaning, for not only does it apply to the young Stephen Dedalus, but it also says much about Joyce himself: one need only take a look at the esoteric allusions in Ulysses to be convinced that Joyce applied his mind to many obscure arts. On top of that, those that study Joyce are applying their minds to the obscure art of figuring out what Joyce meant by his works. I want to be one of those who applies his mind to the study of Joyce.

Why would anyone want to study Joyce? He is admittedly complicated and frustrating—intentionally so, it seems. The simple answer to that is Joyce begs to be studied. Unlike many other authors, Joyce, especially in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, breaks down the traditional form of the novel, inserting in his writing so many allusions that it sometimes can appear as madness. It is difficult to read some of Joyce’s work just for pleasure because the usual elements in fiction like plot and characters are subsumed by themes and motifs. Still, there is a story in Joyce’s epics—arguably, there are many stories in them. The possibility of discovering a different story, or an alternative view to a story already discussed, is exciting. I just the need the chance to study Joyce in an academic setting because I cannot possibly crack Joyce’s genius alone.

I am certainly capable of literary interpretation, as I have studied literature for most of my adult life. As an undergraduate, I attended the University of California at Irvine and majored in English. While I started as a decent student, I began to shine later in my college career in my upper division English courses. At the time, Shakespeare and Milton held my interest. I loved Shakespeare for his language play, role reversals, and juxtapositions of contrary elements; I loved Milton for writing the last epic poem in western literature. Thirsty for more, I attended Rutgers University (Newark Campus) to get a master’s degree in English. The experience there prepared me for the more probing questions required in graduate study, as well as opened my eyes to a wide range of literature to which I was never exposed. Practically everything from Chaucer to Toni Morrison was on the M.A. Exam. I received a High Pass on that exam, the highest grade available. Even so, I had somehow avoided reading and discussing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It was not until after I graduated from the program that I became interested in Joyce.

My love for Joyce came about through reading Anthony Burgess. Quite a few of Burgess’s novels refer in some way to Joyce, either directly (as in The Doctor is Sick) or indirectly. Burgess, like Joyce, toys with English in his work, and that language play is intriguing. In the summer of 2008, I read Burgess's book ReJoyce, a short exegesis of all Joyce's work, which I found incredibly fascinating. Thereafter, I picked up A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners and enjoyed them tremendously. There are moments in both Dubliners and A Portrait where I feel as if I know exactly what Joyce is doing—it is very rare for me to identify that well with many other authors. Really, that is what this comes down to: identification. In some ways I see myself as another Joyce. I love the language play, the allusions, the intensity, and the genius. As a writer myself, I discovered after reading both Burgess and Joyce that my writing bears some resemblance to theirs. I doubt I can write the next Ulysses or Finnegans Wake, but there was always within me a strong interest to make the mundane epic. I also hope, through studying Joyce at ________________, that I am able to incorporate my interest in Burgess with my research on Joyce. If I am unable to do that immediately, I hope that sometime in the future I can bring Burgess into academia because I believe he is worthy of being studied as well.

Another reason it would be beneficial for me to study Joyce in an academic setting is to learn more about the milieu in which Joyce was writing. I openly admit to having blinders on: I only see myself studying Joyce at this point. I hardly know others in the Irish Modernist Movement to effectively evaluate Joyce with his contemporaries. Were other Irish writers as ambivalent to Dublin and Ireland as Joyce was? I do not know, but I would love the opportunity to find out. As far as other Irish Modernists, I have only heard of Sean O’Casey in passing, and I would like to expand my knowledge in this area not only to enhance my understanding of Joyce himself, but also to see how these writers affected the world through their literature.

Ultimately I believe that the resources at ______________ will be invaluable for me to study Joyce. To be so near to James Joyce Quarterly/Joyce Literary Supplement will only prove to add to the experience: I need to see not only what has been said about Joyce during my research, but what is being said as well. The ideas that could arise from the exposure to this flux of interpretations would be stronger, more informed, and thus more beneficial to academia. Yet this would be even larger than academia, because to study Joyce is to study language and the way we communicate with each other. Language is certainly one of the most obscure arts to which anyone can apply his mind, and yet we all must use language, even if we are unaware of how we are using it. I would like to think that, by studying Joyce and his obscure works, I will be contributing to the study of language and writing in a larger sense as well, thereby helping—in some small way—all of us who use language.

Tacklin' Fuel.

When I was a child, playing with Lego cars and airplanes and helicopters I made, I ran into the problem of fueling the vehicle. My imagination did not want to stop the adventure I was having to gas up, but my logical brain would not allow me to unrealistically fly or drive indefinitely, ignoring the issue of gasoline altogether. How did I solve this dilemma? I invented "ghost gas." Ghost gas was the energy source that never ran out; when it was in your gas tank, it kept it full. This allowed my heroes to drive or fly limitlessly without ever having to stop for gas, and it somehow appeased my logical brain enough to not question what exactly would ghost gas comprise of that would allow it to be an eternal fuel.

I think, on some level, that this was the beginning of me as a writer. Solving that dilemma is much like writing any piece of fiction, for does not fiction blend the real with the imaginary in such a way that the reader must suspend disbelief? Even the most fantastical novels in the most imaginary worlds have rules that must be obeyed, because if they did not, the reader would have no reason to continue being lulled into the work because he cannot get over the impossible.

I also think that, if there are any chemical engineers or chemists reading this, you should get started on figuring out a way to make ghost gas real.

The Story Begins...

I finally started writing that story about the dream I had last month. I only wrote a few lines this morning, but it was a start. It seems likely that I will finish this one because the whole thing is mapped out for me; generally when I leave a story (or, ahem, a novel) unfinished it is because I do not know where to go next. It's either for that reason or I completely hate it. So far neither is the case.

Well, I could forget about it too, but that rarely happens.

I am also going to be reading three books at the same time: Madame Bovary, Ulysses, and Where the Red Fern Grows. I'm re-reading both Madame Bovary and Where the Red Fern Grows, and I'm nearly done (about 260 pages remaining) with Ulysses, but there will be least be some overlap between the books. I haven't read so many books at the same time since I was in school.

The reason I'm reading Where the Red Fern Grows is because I assigned it to the kid I'm tutoring and I need to follow along. I haven't read it since I was the kid's age (he's like 10 or 11). I had forgotten a lot of things about the novel, but I still remember how it ends, which is a downer. Oh well.

As far as Madame Bovary goes, I'm reading that because a friend wants to read it and cannot seem to get through it alone. Completely empathic to that issue (I often feel that if I'm bound to someone else, I can get things accomplished), I decided that I should read it again, even though I finished it just last year. The difference now is that I am going to be reading a different edition than the one I read. Instead of Eleanor Marx-Aveling's translation published by Barnes & Noble, I will be reading Geoffrey Wall's translation published by Penguin. Naturally, I will go back and forth between the two translations; I may just come out of this with more insight into the novel. Of course the best thing would to read it in the original French, but I would need to study that language first.

The whole point of all this is to try to keep myself busy so that I can get the ball rolling on other things. For instance, I need to apply again to Ph.D. programs, and I haven't started. If I let inertia take over, then maybe I can accomplish the things I don't seem to when I have all the time on the world on my hands.

Let's hope this works.

Worlds of Bodies

Yesterday I bid the Body Worlds exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum adieu by visiting the museum. I did not really want to go, but my mother had wanted to since the exhibit came to San Diego and I thought she should see it since it was its last day.

I came to a series of conclusions:

1. Beauty is only skin deep for me. Once you remove the skin of a person, I no longer find her attractive or beautiful.

2. It is extremely difficult to tell the difference between preserved dead bodies and plastic reproductions.

3. "Amygdala" would be a perfect name for a fictional character, especially an emotional one.

4. Science neglects (or so far hasn't empirically discovered) the soul. Thus, things like love are attributed to a special part of the brain (the amygdala), and therefore could be categorized and generalized. Creativity is also presumed to be caused by the brain (and not by muses... oh, those silly ancients!).

5. People can die in the middle of hitting a home run, scoring a goal in soccer, or doing yoga.

6. You have very little control over your body, much less control than you think.

7. Eyeballs without eyelids are frightening.

8. The human body, cut apart and suspended by strings, is monstrous.

What I couldn't quite decipher is the relationship of the soul to the body--but of course that would not be the place to do it. Still, I couldn't quite help but think that if the soul is somehow connected to the body, then were those people watching us as we watched them? Were we somehow torturing these deceased people, even though during life they willingly donated their bodies to science? It disturbed me a little, as if I were exhuming a grave.

I also found myself thinking along the lines of pre-Renaissance thinkers: the body is a sac in which is held bile and waste.

Nonetheless, it was hideously fascinating, and I learned quite a bit. But, like Doctor Faustus, I was left to wonder at what cost did I recieve this knowledge. Overall, the exhibit made me revisit questions (and definitions) of life and death and that element that makes us human and not merely a series of electrical impulses and chemical reactions responding to stimuli. I did not come up with any concrete answers for the important questions, however. At least my mother enjoyed the experience.

Speechwright.

I revisited the dream I had last week. I spent over two hours two days ago transcribing what I recorded onto a Word document. It took that long because I wanted to get it as close to verbatim as possible. I say "as close to verbatim" because I realized the impossibility of typing a pure transcription of what I spoke into the recorder. There was first the problem of the excess "ands" and "ums," and then the added difficulty of deciding where sentences ended (exacerbated by the superfluous ands). I did not complete sentences that I could have sworn I did. I trailed off, changed directions, and interrupted myself. I could not discern which punctuation mark to use for each pause. I also discovered that, when speaking into a mechanical device, I use the word "like" profusely. I sounded a lot like a valley girl stuck in the year 1985. I used the word like so much that it became an interjection--a major no-no in the world of grammar. This bothers me.

There is, however, an interesting point here. The spoken and written word are different things. Something spoken that needs to be converted into written form must undergo translation. Looking back, all the jobs that I had that required me to take dictation (which is about two jobs total) also required me to interpret what the speaker was thinking and make changes. I often spelled things incorrectly, especially when I was unfamiliar with the subject (for instance, I would often misspell names of people in divorce cases until I became familiar with the cases). I also inserted commas, semi-colons, and periods where I thought they were necessary, regardless of the directions of the speaker. I was translating and modifying when I transcribed the voice recording onto paper.

Likewise, something written that needs to be converted into something spoken also needs translation. All it takes is one monotone speech or presentation to realize that the written word is not the same as the spoken one. When we speak we add tone, pitch, and ungrammatical pauses wherever necessary. While there are punctuation marks that indicate tone, italics, question marks, and exclamation points are too simplistic to capture the wide range of sounds humans are capable of making. For instance, there is no punctuation mark to connote irony. It is only when we translate the written word into the spoken that we can get the precise sound that connotes irony. This is why great actors get a lot of credit: their translation of the script is convincing and moving, something that is more difficult than it appears at first.

I had to translate myself. This was easier than translating another, because I knew what I was thinking at the time and what I meant. Still, it was quite surprising to hear me utter a twenty line sentence strung together with ands and ripped to shreds with likes. The thing that was the most surprising was the realization that I do not even listen to myself say these things. I gloss over these gross grammatical and nearly incomprehensible errors. I am sure I forgive others for the same violations of the language in speech that I would reprimand them for unmercifully in their writing. It is quite amazing how we ever got a written language. It is almost as if we translate what we hear in speech to something more comprehensible, and from that comprehensible thought we developed writing.

I believe it was Nietzsche who preferred the oral to the written (though please let me know if I'm wrong), and it is generally assumed that spoken language preceded the written word. But, in order to have a written language that made sense, man would need to already have written language prefigured in some way. Take oral epics for example: Homer's Iliad, Odyssey, and the anonymous epic Beowulf. These are thought to have been oral traditions, but they are so polished and so coherent that it is hard to fathom how they ever could have been transmitted by mouth alone. These poems are far beyond my stuttering, muttering recording. But that's how I talk.

I am assuming, of course, that man's speech is constant; that in all ages people spoke with awkward pauses and ungrammatical constructions. I'm even assuming that everyone speaks as I speak, and that we collectively as humans ignore the inherent errors in speech and remember only the polished, written-like word. It very well could be that in the time Beowulf was being related, people spoke perfect epic and hesitated not. The words which they thought were without question the words that they spoke; that nothing was lost in the migration. (Thought is also an unclear subject, but one I will not get into now.) If this were so, then my entire theory is dashed, for that would mean that the spoken word is superior to the written and it would make sense that we would have a written language after the spoken; possibly the written word has deteriorated our once perfect handling of the spoken. Luckily, there is no way to definitively determine that because we are behind the cloud of the written word: when we do not have historical records (i.e. written documents) then we cannot make assumptions about the past.

Strange. Certainly something to think about.

I will be sure to post more on the progress of my experiment.

Only In Dreams.

I wonder if this has been done:

I recorded, via a digital voice recorder my sister gave me for my birthday, a dream I had this morning. I plan to make a short story out of the dream because it seemed like one of the most complete dreams I could remember.

I had a real Joycean moment when I woke up. In the foggy hazeglow of aftersleep, while the dream was still fresh, I had a conscious thought: "This would make a great story." Then, like Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I scrambled out of bed to immediately record the dream. Granted, for Stephen it was a few lines of a poem that he wrote down while for me it was a dream which I spoke into a voice recorder groggily, but it nonetheless bears a connection--albeit a loose one--to Joyce. That's all it takes to make me smile.

It's funny because I related the whole dream holding the voice recorder while it was off. I realized the error after I finished and turned it on and retold it, so the story, when I type it out, will be twice (or thrice?) removed from the dream. That should prove interesting. The biggest difficulty will be to capture the mood because so many of the details will be forgotten--even now the dream is fading although I took precautions to remember it. Much will need to be filled in.

I will not record the dream here because I want to save it for the story, so to speak. What I must do now is type up what I spoke into the recorder and rearrange it into a surrealistic story. Even if this has been done before, it would be a fun exercise to transfer a (twice removed) dream from the images of the mind to paper and make a short story of it. It probably will not sound like the other stuff I have written, and I certainly cannot say "I wrote it" in the same way I write other things. I mean, the thoughts are within me, but they are also not mine at the same time. The story will be more of me fashioning a extant plot, like a sculptor carves out of a rock a figure of a man, or, to use a better analogy, like Shakespeare made plays out stories from Plutarch. So that should be fun.

I may have to hold off on doing that until next week or so, but at least the dream is recorded. I cannot anticipate how this little experiment will turn out.

Jake's Peer

I tried to write a Shakespearean Sonnet today. I succeeded, but I do not know if it's any good. I wonder if I need to create my own form of the sonnet in order to be a "poet." I was originally just going to number it, but then I thought that would be too much like Shakespeare. Plus, I don't know if will I write any more of these. I remember trying to write a Shakespearean Sonnet a long time ago, but I don't know where it is and I have been too lazy to try and locate it. I actually read a few sonnets to remember the form, which was a terrible mistake as it only pronounced my own inferiority. Still I trudged forward and completed it. I post it now for your amusement:

Thoughts of Last Forever

In the back of my mind I am wrestling
With the thoughts of last forever and I—
Like a bird that has flown from home nestling
In some other sanctuary to die—
Find that I am losing this match against
An eternity appearing in dreams
As an awful wood in which I am fenced
As vultures peck me apart at the seams.
The contenders stand before each other:
One limited, faulty; one flawless, pure,
They interlock, brother against brother,
The battle a symptom and not the cure.
///Still, as the bell rings that sounds my defeat,
///I cannot accept the war is complete.

Small Joys

The radio in the Volvo had been "Off" for a couple of months now. My father had taken it in for repairs in June or July to his mechanic, and so when the mechanic disengaged the battery, we lost the radio. It said "Code" on it when we first turned the radio on afterward, but we had entered the wrong code three times and were banished into the land of "Off." So even when it was on it was off.

Once you are mired in Offland, the only remedy, according to the user's manual, is to leave the battery on for two hours until it resets. I kept this in mind for months but did not have the time to carry out the task. My mother had called the dealer to verify the code soon after, so we had the correct code for when we had the opportunity.

We had to drop off my brother last week after his little "vacation" due to his sprained ankle. We took two cars so he would have a car with which to get to work. My parents were in the Volvo. I remembered when we arrived at his apartment that if they had turned the radio on so it said "Off" we could have put in the code and got the radio to work (for the entire round trip takes about 2 and a half hours). We said next week. On Friday my father and I went to pick up my brother, and we thought of taking the Volvo, but my mother needed the car and so we took my father's car.

Finally, today, we were able to take the Volvo and we remembered to turn the radio on so we could reset it. We dropped off my brother while the engine was running. On the way back, with a half an hour left to go until the two hour mark, my mother reread the manual and double-checked the code to make absolutely sure what to do when the word "Code" should appear on the radio display. However, at the two hour mark, the radio did not reset. My mother had checked the manual again, and it somehow indicated that only the battery should be on (and not the engine). My father disagreed. We started to lose hope that we could get the radio working again. We would have to take it to the dealer. I was so sure at the start of the trip this would work, but this had completely baffled me.

For some reason I looked at the radio display from my position in the backseat. It said Code! I scream-stuttered to my mother that is said code, and instantly she put in the code and we waited...

The radio worked!

My mother gave me a high-five and we all laughed about how ridiculous this whole ordeal was. But it was really that small joy that made the entire trip worth it.

Do You Still Live In Angry Days?

"The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: When one of you becomes angry while standing, he should sit down. If the anger leaves him, well and good; otherwise he should lie down." [Abu Daud; Book 41, No. 4764]

"Insults are better taken lying down, claim scientists."

(This post courtesy of my brother.)

“If Others Have Their Will Ann Hath A Way.”

I have been thinking recently about effecting the will. Please understand “thinking” to mean snippets of moments when the issue comes up in my mind--small insights but no real conclusions. It began a couple of months ago when a friend had informed me that he had hired a personal trainer to help him and his wife lose weight. The issue was simple: he wanted to work out, but he could not do it himself. My first question was: why could he not do it himself?

Of course now, in the month of the Ramadan, effecting the will surrounds me. I make an intention to not eat, and all day I go without food. Food could be right in front of me and my stomach is rumbling, but I do not eat. I willfully deny myself, and, despite the urgings of the body, I effect my will.

So it is evident that man can accomplish his goals. Fasting is proof of this. Yet, what blocks my friend from working out himself? Why did he feel he needed to hire someone to motivate him when it is his own desire to lose weight? My immediate answer to this was that my friend desired the result of working out—that of losing weight—but did not desire the means to attain that end. That makes sense and is illogical at the same time. It makes sense because to work out is an arduous exertion, and one that one may be disinclined to perform, especially due to inertia. However, the only way to lose weight healthily is to work out and diet; so to desire weight loss (without illness) requires one to perform that arduous task. So it would be irrational to want to be skinny but not want to work to be skinny. It is, in effect, a contradiction to desire weight loss but hate working out.

What further complicates this scenario is that the desire to be skinny clearly outweighs the laziness. If it did not, then my friend would not spend his money to hire a personal trainer. If the desire to lose weight is stronger, and there is knowledge of how to lose weight, then why would there be a need for a personal trainer? This is what stumps me. Why could not the will to be thin assert itself, and my friend, with the goal of being skinny in mind, work out on his own?

There are probably a plethora of psychological theories and studies that could point to why humans contradict themselves. It could be something subconscious, like the rift between the superego and the id. But if it is subconscious, and I do not have access to my subconscious, then it does not help me to solve the problem. I would like to solve this problem because, in the end, this is a problem for all of us. I may use my friend as an example, but I too have contradictory desires. I want to be published, yet I do not write. And I know I can effect my will because I do so all the time. Even if the issue is psychological, I fail to grasp how reasoning it out would not help the situation. For if one can present a logical argument to me or my friend of how we can accomplish our goals, then it only stands to reason that we would follow through with that line of reasoning. If we do not, at least we understand what the logical thing to do is.

It may be as simple as just disregarding the contradictory will and effecting the real goal. Theoretically this would do, but in practice it is not that easy. The power of the human will is something I must save for another post, but it is far more powerful than I believe many imagine. Two clashing wills, vying to attain reality, is probably the most difficult thing to overcome. And maybe that’s why my friend hired a personal trainer: to leave the decision-making out of his hands and put it in the hands of another. By making it a duty to someone else (the personal trainer is, after all, trying to get paid), the issue of what my friend desires becomes a long term goal. The immediate goal is to attend the appointment with the trainer and pay him. It is a delaying tactic really, but an excuse to overcome his own inertia and assert his real goal.

Now if only there were a personal trainer for writing…

Out Of Steam.

I'm a little slow today. I spent the whole day steam-cleaning the house. A monstrous task with coiled black wires and heated water and caustic soap. Rivers of sweat ensued.

I'm not even done yet.

My brother sprained his ankle playing basketball today. My father took him to the doctor's to make sure he was all right. He was all right. Except for the sprained ankle.

I took breaks to eat and to tutor a 10 year-old. His father wants him to study for the SAT's. I oblige because his father pays me. The things we do for money.

C.B. made me do this with something like telekenesis which is sometimes known as inspiration.

I wrote a poem for C.B. yesterday. Here it is:

Ode to C.B.

You play tennis without the net
But I still love you for it.
Whitmanesque, freezing Frost’s critique,
Caring not a whit that you contradict.

Composed in your composition it seems,
But fire bursts forth from the words, hidden
In the few lines is not the slaking of thirst
From a full pail, but the napalm-hunger

Of a composition course. You bind them
To their release in early morning hours:
Yawning, hideous, misshapen buildings.
They must climb their own hills in the hall.

Most of them do not see it, do they?
The leaves of grass whisper their barbaric
Yawps unheard and unseen, and they do not
Care a whack about being on the road.

However you guide them to their final
Destination. You show them all their words
Until they see them; you show them all your
Worlds until.

They are free. You are reborn as a fee
Nix, ashes on palimpsest, composing,
In a few lines, a Miltonic epic
Wherein I can play tennis without a net.

New Blog!

Not that this one is going anywhere, but it hasn't been going anywhere for a long time now. So I started fresh. Not really fresh, but something new. Something a friend casually mentioned to me on Facebook and it suddenly became a possibility and then a reality in the space of a few days. It gives me something to do; it gives me a direction for my writing because my novel is daunting.

So please visit.

http://frownpower.blogspot.com/

I Should Probably Write Something.

Something.