"Fiction as Exception" by Bernardo Carvalho

Today I read an exceptional essay by Brazilian writer Bernardo Carvalho titled "Fiction as Exception" (Luso-Brazilian Review (47:1)). The upcoming theme for Fiction International is "DV8," and I found myself reflecting on Carvalho's constant attempts to subvert what he sees as the tropes of "best selling" or so-called "non-serious-fiction" by intentionally creating works of "experimental" fiction.

Perhaps Carvalho says it best toward the end of his essay: "Being a reactive writer, who often works out of tantrums, against what I see around me, I could not refrain from ending up associating fiction (a very particular kind of fiction, I must say, "experimental" fiction for the want of a better word) with authorship and rupture. I believe this is the main conscious motive behind my writings: to search for literature where it is least expected, to turn what would be considered flawed by collective standards into my own literary qualities." (page 8).

I believe it is in this spirit of experimental, ruptured, and flawed writing that Fiction International operates.

An excerpt of Carvalho's essay is below.

from FICTION AS EXCEPTION by Bernardo Carvalho
Luso-Brazilian Review 47:1

"What I am trying to say here - and this is what I really believe in as a writer - is something quite evident, but which is progressively being questioned from different fronts and angles: literature is the result of a subjective, singular and individual act. It is created out of conventions and, in the case of the modern western tradition, conventions which were often conceived against conventions. The problem now is that a new generation is coming of age under the spell of a general corporate ideology in which you do not want to use art and literature as a means against conventions anymore, but rather against your own capacity to break with the conventions. You should not question the net. It has become a second nature. It aims at not having anything outside itself. You can be a self-proclaimed writer in the internet with no original writing, reproducing what is being done everywhere around you, publicizing your personality instead of going against the conventions of your own time (in which case you probably would not be read on the net). It has become more important to be socially recognized as a writer than to write unexpected work, to have a function than to create rupture. Functionally, it is as if there were no conventions anymore and art (or literature) was just a natural act of expression and creativity which could be done, democratically, by anyone, and evaluated and shared by objective and measurable criteria. Of course, these criteria can only be given by the market (how many people read and praise a book or a blog) or by the previous and palpable reality a book represents (thus the hegemony of non-fiction and of fiction that expresses the direct experience of its author). By this logic, what makes a good book is less the ability of an author to invent, to imagine and to create new unexpected things or to go against conventional consensus than the ability of the author to share his or her own life experiences and to represent and reassert the world we already share, see and understand.

Being a reactive writer, who often works out of tantrums, against what I see around me, I could not refrain from ending up associating fiction (a very particular kind of fiction, I must say, "experimental" fiction for the want of a better word) with authorship and rupture. I believe this is the main conscious motive behind my writings: to search for literature where it is least expected, to turn what would be considered flawed by collective standards into my own literary qualities.

Recently, after hearing another Brazilian writer say that literature does not search for truth, as science does, but that it is the representation and incorporation of different discourses of reality, I understood more clearly that in fact the literature I am interested in is, on the contrary, the result of a search for truth, for a truth that is not in the world we see. It is a literature more interested in the invention of what has yet to be created than with representation of what we already recognize around us. Of course, this invention can sometimes only be conceived by allusion. It is a tentative act, which strives to say things that cannot be said, a literature (and now I am speaking about my books) that uses the conventions of realism to show the frailty of these same conventions. It is a literature that rejects the already established poetic and metaphoric standards, sometimes through apparently banal, neutral and non-literary language, as it tries to show literature where it is least expected. It is a literature, as you may have understood by now, fascinated by paradoxes. It is a working-process literature, as if truth could only happen in movement, before being said and understood, and could only make sense before making sense, before being unanimously accepted as truth.

Of course, there is in these books a consciousness of our time, of humanity as a self-destructive element. They are books informed by a kind of ill-resolved humanism, in which the consciousness of our own evil is not enough to make us refrain from it, since it is at the same time the reason for our immediate survival. Writing about Brazil, in his The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald, the late German writer, tells us that "Our propagation on earth comes with the carbonization of superior vegetable species and, in a more general way, the unstoppable burning of every combustible substance (...) everything is combustion, and combustion is the intimate principle of every object made by us." This consciousness of the human being as paradox is behind the narrative structures of my novels and the characters I am interested in, fighting their own conventions from within, in order to see what their condition forbids them to see. And it brings me to the place where I recognize the artistic act and its tragic nature, being the herald of a consciousness that is never enough, as if looking for an unconceivable truth that could save us from what we are.

I am not a religious person, I do not believe in any god, and I do not abide by any church, but I recognize the religious aspect of what I have just said. In fact, I would agree if you told me that it has to do with faith. Faith in literature as a way of transcendence, of widening the world we live in and its understandings - not necessarily with good will and good universal feelings that become commonplace and therefore can be easily marketed, but by tackling our most contradictory, paradoxical and obscure spots. This is what I call literary truth, the product of authorship, of an individual subjectivity that cannot be unanimously or consensually taken, nor can it be conceived before its own creation."

How to not succeed in zine publishing

Fiction International is (naturally!) interested in publishing trends. This article from The Atlantic (of all places) provides a how-to guide for publishing gonzo zines, 21st Century style. Too bad the trio aren't as interested in distribution and marketing; if they were they would have a formula for success.

Mashups and Mixtapes

I'm enjoying Rich Medina's mashup album titled "The King Meets the President." It is available for free download at http://www.soulculture.co.uk/blogs/music-blog/newmusic/free-downloads/michael-jackson-meets-fela-kuti-mashup-album-the-king-meets-the-president-in-africa/ . I highly recommend it if you are a fan of Michael Jackson or Fela Kuti or both. Imagine Michael singing his hits with Fela's Afrobeat orchestra as the backing band and you get the idea.

The mash-up is not a new concept in art. Simply put, it is the recombination of two existing works of art to make a new one. In the case of dance music the mashup often involves pairing two unlikely artists, such as rapper Notorious BIG and crooner Frank Sinatra. (For some fun examples of mashups please visit the following site: http://screwattack.com/blogs/Thunderbirds-blog/Thunderbirds-Top-10-Mashups.) It could be argued that the mashup is a forced and intentional act of dialectical creation.

A close parallel to the mashup in literature is William Burroughs' fold-In technique of poetry where he takes two pieces of printed text, folds them in half, and then reads the two halves together as if they were a single narrative. Burroughs himself was inspired by the Dadaists. Of course making the leap from Burroughs to Rich Medina is not without complication, but the similarities between the mashup and the fold-in are undeniable.

Meghan Langley recently wrote a profile of Fela Kuti in Peace Review (2010, Vol 22, No 2, pp. 199-204), which provides an overview of his early life in Nigeria, education in England, political awakening in the US through contact with Angela Davis and other Black Panthers, and musical accomplishment in Africa. Langley writes, "(Fela) used his lyrics to protest and the instruments to make you listen" (p 202). Are writers limited to only using "lyrics" and not "instruments"? The answer is certainly No.

This brings me to Kenzo Digital's remix album titled "City of God's Son." It is available for free download at http://www.cityofgodson.com/. It is essentially a mixtape of New York's most famous MCs, such as Nas, Jay-Z, Ghostface Killah, and Notorious BIG. What makes this mixtape different is that Kenzo Digital weaves in dialogue from actors, such as Samuel L. Jackson, Lawrence Fishburne, Delroy Lindo, and Al Pacino to create a cohesive story.

In short, Kenzo Digital has produced a work of spoken-word prose. Amidst the soundscape of gun shots, sirens, music, and dialogue, salsa great Joe Bataan narrates the mixtape by reading original prose by Kenzo Digital. This mosaic of voices and sounds coalesces into a type of noir novella. It is heard instead of read, but the characters, plot, and setting operate in the same manner as a conventional story. In fact Kenzo Digital promotes the album as the first "Beat Cinematic" and "viral musical sound art."

Just as Burroughs' use of the "fold-in" is analogous to the mashup so too is his use of the "cut-up" similar to the mixtape. The cut-up technique involves fragmenting a complete work of prose and re-assembling the pieces to make a new text. This is exactly what Kenzo Digital accomplishes in "City of God's Son" with music, film, and original prose narrative. Again, the leap from Burroughs to Kenzo Digital is not without complication, but the parallels in method are undeniable.

Harold Jaffe's Paris 60, part 5

In the final excerpt to appear on this blog, our wanderer (Harold Jaffe) spends an evening being civilized by a family of Parisians.

4.15 Deep River

Listening to Vivaldi's Stabat Mater on my iPod as I reprise yesterday evening with new friends.

This version of Stabat Mater features the Japanese contralto Naoko Ihara, which in turn reminds me of the Japanese Christian Shusaku Endo's last novel Deep River, about a group of Japanese pilgrims traveling to the holy Hindu city of Varanasi.

It is the homely, seemingly misbegotten Japanese who makes the final offering, carrying the dead and dying "untouchables" to the River Ganges so their immolated ashes might merge with those who came before and were yet to come.

Ynez and Guillaume Deveraux live in a spacious apartment on the top floor of a Haussmann-era building directly across from the Montparnasse Cemetery.

The apartment was donated rent-free for as long as Ynez continued her employment as manager in the state-run Ministry of Health.

Her husband Guillaume is an artist with a cramped studio in the apartment.

At my request he shows me electronic representations of his work -- impressive abstracts which resemble both Action Painting and the calligraphic paintings of Mark Tobey, who studied Buddhism in Japan.

They have two daughters, Celeste 11, and Marie-Jeanne 3. Celeste has Down syndrome and is a grand mal epileptic, though she hasn't suffered a seizure in nearly a year.

I meet Ynez for the first time downstairs by the elevator, 7:30 PM.

Slender, attractive, somewhat tense, she is only now returning from her job; I am the invited guest.

When we arrive in the apartment, Marie-Jeanne runs to greet her mother then stops as she looks up at the large stranger.

I stoop low to greet her and she kisses me on both cheeks.

Ynez then goes to the sofa in front of the bay window where Celeste is sprawled with her head turned to the side and the foot of a rubber doll in her mouth.

Ynez sits and takes Celeste in her arms, whispering tenderly to her.

I sit on the same sofa.

Guillaume enters, shakes my hand, kisses Ynez, smoothes Celeste's hair, then picks up the three-year-old who is staring at me with a wild surmise.

Guillaume pours the red wine but Ynez is still caressing and whispering to Celeste.

Meanwhile, Marie-Jeanne has carried over her small, red and gold tin box and is making offerings to me.

She places a tiny pink bead in my palm, then an orange ribbon, then a chestnut, a silver bead, a very small bit of jade, another ribbon, a feather.

She delivers them one by one, carefully selecting from her box.

She has created an impressive still-life in my wide palm.

After nearly an hour of quiet talking, Celeste, who had not even turned her head to me, suddenly leans all her weight on me, reaches back and takes my hand which she grasps firmly.

Noting this, Marie-Jeanne settles her tiny self on my knee.

Ynez smiles.

She, the mother, looks lovely and weary.

The late sun slanting through the bay window lights her eyes and forehead.

This is the last of the Paris 60 excerpts - to appear on this blog, that is. If you would like to read more excerpts from this amazing collection, go to his website and click the word "docufiction."

Harold Jaffe's Paris 60, part 4

One cannot spend any time in Paris - not one day, not one life - without attending the baguette.

4.11 Baguette

Van Gogh, who lived most of his fated life in France, shot himself in the chest, but somehow couldn't kill himself correctly.

He managed to stand and walk to his cot, where he died a few days later, head to the wall.

His whispered last words to Theo, his brother, were reportedly: "La tristesse durera toujours."

Sadness will last forever.

Consider the baguette which, it seems, has been with us forever.

Only in France; imitations can't rival it.

Perhaps the Italians come closest, though their "baguette" is prepared differently.

Unlike, say, Chartreuse, the liqueur composed by monks with its undisclosed ingredients, the ingredients of the baguette de campagne are eminently simple: flour, yeast, water, salt.

The alchemy is in the preparation, and perhaps the physical context.

A baguette purchased in the Montorgeuil quartier of Paris is not likely to taste the same in Glasgow, Prague, or Beverly Hills.

The baguette itself is rarely bagged.

Ordinary paper, even a strip of newspaper, wrapped round its center, or no paper at all.

Hot from the oven is best, but even unheated, the trick is for the purchaser not to devour it before reaching his apartment.

The admonition applies to children, adults, and seniors.

To bankers, gangsters, politicians, the unemployed.

Have your chauffeur lock the baguette in the limo's trunk.

Break it in half and stick it in your bicycle bag; make sure you zip the bag, and whistle all the way back to your flat.

Break it in thirds and fit them into your pockets.

Stretch it around your head like a halo.

(Un ange passe)

Light a cigarette and keep it in your lips until you reach home with baguette intact.

Make a vow to fast for the seven minutes it takes to walk from the boulangerie to your flat.

You're back home at last.

Sit at the plain wood table, such as Vincent would paint, and break bread with your lover or alone.

Have some vin de maison.

Like the young priest in Robert Bresson's 1950 Journal d'un Curé de Campagne, adapted from the Bernanos novel.

The priest, unjustly maligned by his parishioners, takes nothing but bread and red wine.

Imitation of Christ.

Contre la tristesse.

Sadness that will last forever.

Please tell me, pale reader, how Bresson's introverted young priest, with a sensibility much like Vincent's, rejected in his country parish, unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer and soon to die, whispers these last words to a seminary friend: All is grace?

Harold Jaffe's Paris 60, part 3

After recovering from the Parisian toilet, our intrepid author takes to the streets in search of Baudelaire.

4.6 Solitude

Baudelaire in Paris Spleen goes on about the virtues of solitude.

This was naturally before the advent of technology.

After despising Parisians with whom you're compelled to interact daily, returning to your flat at dusk and securing the locks on the door would seem reassuring.

The chalice of laudanum, half-open bottle of absinthe, and hashish laced with opium are arguably more productive than surfing the Net or texting a chum.

I've been isolated in New York, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Mexico City, Quito, Tokyo, Singapore, New Delhi, Paris.

Paris is the most evocative city in which to be alone.

It is only the French who admit (or do not deny) the fou and folle.

The mad and palpably deviant.

I don't mean the functionally mad: bankers, corporate chieftains, uniformed child-murderers.

Those are welcome everywhere in the global village.

I mean the dysfunctional who smell bad, can't decipher the métro, do nothing but dream and rant.

True, Sade was imprisoned and Artaud institutionalized, but there were mitigating circumstances.

Parisians cross the boulevard at the red.

Drive their cars and motorcycles on the sidewalks.

Litter the Bois de Bologne with condoms.

Love their dogs but don't pick up the dog shit.

They welcome, at least in principle, the transgressive tradition in art and letters.

After a bad day with bad people, cross-dressing or undressing, getting high on anything.

Then going out in the Paris dark to a film or gallery opening and groping the human or sub-human to your left.

Stabbing him in the thigh with the poisoned tip of your umbrella.

It's a rush, cathartic, eminently satisfying.

And Paris is the only major city I know that grants you your donnée, won't even turn around to glare.

Harold Jaffe's Paris 60, part 2

For the second excerpt (from Paris 60) Harold Jaffe describes a bit of culture shock in the men's room.

4.2 Toilet

The French struck gold with the bidet, but now it's time to move on.

Show a hetero American male a bidet and he'll laugh or try to shit in it.

Enter a typical French café and the toilet is likely to be down among the catacombs.

Where it's not the squatting-on-your heels contraption, miserably close to your dung and the dung of those who squatted before you, it is a toilet without a seat and likely without toilet paper.

I am a claustrophobe.

Unlike Sarko, je suis grand.

In one of the old cafes near République, I squeezed my way down into the basement toilet which was about the size of the coffin in the 1988 Dutch-French film The Vanishing.

As I was using the clownishly loud dryer to blow my hands dry, I heard a sptttt, the dryer shorted, suddenly it was black as Hades.

The space was so tight I could scarcely turn around.

Moreover I forgot where on the door the lock was, which I spasmodically felt around for with both hands.

Next I was violently shaking and kicking the door, shouting, swearing, not in English but in "American" -- as the French put it.

Finally I more or less pulled myself together.

Remembered that the lock was a sliding bolt close to the top of the door.

Slid it open, bent my head, left.

Parisians make a point of being too smooth to acknowledge deviation, but the patrons turned to me questioningly as I climbed the stairs.

They had to have heard the racket I was making.

Under my breath I muttered: You're lucky.

I could be one of those American mass murderers -- in which case your Parisian asses would be escargot.

Harold Jaffe's Paris 60, part 1

Harold Jaffe, editor of Fiction International, will have a new book out (pub. Civil Coping Mechanism) in September, 2010. Called Paris 60, it was written in 2008 while he was in Paris to greet the French publication of 15 Serial Killers. It's loosely modeled on Baudelaire's Paris Spleen. This is the first of five excerpts we will publish here.

3.29 Oyster

More than two years since I saw him last, the Moroccan-French waiter in the small oyster bar near the St Paul métro stop in the Marais.

Recognize each other at once, shake hands.

After I speak friendly words he corrects my French.

Even the pissed-on ex-colonized are language pedants in Paris.

Never mind the Starbucks-McDonalds low-grade infection, Parisian cuisine is comme toujours, but expensive, and the dollar, formerly king, is not just shit, but reeks of it.

Maghreb French boys do the hip-hop thing -- rhythmic walk, sideways cap, gang-banger hand-signals.

Hand-signal -- the other hand strokes the mobile.

Myself, aimlessly walking, Baudelaire's flaneur, post-millennium, sans hashish.

Sidestepping shoppers, not catching an eye, nearly everyone tonguing their mobile.

Pause at a café for a Pastis.

No more colorful Gitanes or Gauloises packets laid on the cafe table.

Unexpectedly, the French have followed the US anti-smoking route, even as the streets and highways are congested, polluted.

Ah, but the métro is still a Cartesian marvel of efficiency.

Underpaid transit workers are threatening to strike.

In solidarity with university students who now pay more for less.

The strikers will ritually take over the streets.

In this 40th anniversary, books on the student almost-revolution in May 68 are prominently displayed in the bookstore windows.

No correspondence between Soixante-huit and Sarko's current repression.

Régis Debray, onetime revolutionary who fought with Che in Bolivia, has published his memoirs to critical acclaim.

They too are featured in bookstores.

Debray has rotated 180 degrees and now despises Che, Fidel, Mao.

Scion of a high-toned French family, Debray is proud to have finally acknowledged his birthright.

Revolution, even in this country of Communards, has devolved into a noun like "archeology" or "Social Darwinism."

The Writer's Technique in Thirteen Theses by Walter Benjamin

The world is crammed full of people (and books and videos and seminars) offering advice to writers. Talking and reading about writing are inescapable if you are a writer by vocation or avocation, but in my experience, they're usually also a diversion from the act itself. Over the past decades, I've no doubt read hundreds of pages and spent many, many hours listening to (and spouting my own) meta-commentary about writing, and much of it has been soothing in the way that therapy or AA meetings can be, but by and large it's been of little use in any practical sense for me. Exceptions exist, and this passage from Walter Benjamin is a noteworthy one. I return to this often, and I find it a useful guide. Perhaps you will as well.

Post No Bills

The Writer's Technique in Thirteen Theses

I. Anyone intending to embark on a major work should be lenient with himself and, having completed a stint, deny himself nothing that will not prejudice the next.

II. Talk about what you have written, by all means, but do not read from it while the work is in progress. Every gratification procured in this way will slacken your tempo. If this regime is followed, the growing desire to communicate will become in the end a motor for completion.

III. In your working conditions avoid everyday mediocrity. Semi-relaxation, to a background of insipid sounds, is degrading. On the other hand, accompaniment by an étude or a cacophony of voices can become as significant for work as the perceptible silence of the night. If the latter sharpens the inner ear, the former acts as a touchstone for a diction ample enough to bury even the most wayward sounds.

IV. Avoid haphazard writing materials. A pedantic adherence to certain papers, pens, inks is beneficial. No luxury, but an abundance of these utensils is indispensable.

V. Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens.

VI. Keep your pen aloof from inspiration, which it will then attract with magnetic power. The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself. Speech conquers thought, but writing commands it.

VII. Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Literary honour requires that one break off only at an appointed moment (a mealtime, a meeting) or at the end of the work.

VIII. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written. Intuition will awaken in the process.

IX. Nulla dies sine linea – but there may well be weeks.

X. Consider no work perfect over which you have not once sat from evening to broad daylight.

XI. Do not write the conclusion of a work in your familiar study. You would not find the necessary courage there.

XII. Stages of composition: idea – style – writing. The value of the fair copy is that in producing it you confine attention to calligraphy. The idea kills inspiration, style fetters the idea, writing pays off style.

XIII. The work is the death mask of its conception.

–One-Way Street, trans. Edmund Jephcott, Selected Writings, Volume 1: 1913-1926, ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge: Belknap P of Harvard UP, 1996) 458-9.

D V 8

For an issue on DEVIATE (DV8) Fiction International will read fiction, non-fiction and indeterminate prose between 9/1 and 12/15, 2110. Submit hardcopy texts or visuals (with SASE) to:

Harold Jaffe
Editor, Fiction International
Dept of English
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182-6020.

Donald Barthelme's reading list

Donald Barthelme (1931-1989) is known as the "father of flash fiction" because his stories typically avoid traditional plot structures, relying instead on a steady acculumation of seemingly-unrelated detail. By subverting the reader's expectations through constant non sequiturs, Barthelme creates a hopelessly fragmented verbal collage reminiscent of such modernist works as T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and James Joyce's Ulysses, whose linguistic experiments he often challenged.

Certain parallels have also been drawn between Barthelme and Franz Kafka. However, Barthelme's fundamental skepticism and irony distanced him from the modernists' belief in the power of art to reconstruct society, leading most critics to class him as a postmodernist writer.

Literary critics have noted that Barthelme, like the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, whom he admired, plays with the meanings of words, relying on poetic intuition to spark new connections of ideas buried in the expressions and conventional responses.

The critic George Wicks called Barthelme "the leading American practitioner of surrealism today . . . whose fiction continues the investigations of consciousness and experiments in expression that began with Dada and surrealism a half century ago." On the other hand, he has been described by Josephine Henden (Harper's) as an "angry sado-masochist."

Read him (or read about him), and decide for yourself.

Anti-Twitter is now on sale

Jaffe's newest book, Anti-Twitter: 150 50-Word Stories is now on sale - just in time for his presentation at the Google Authors Series on Friday, Feb 19, at noon, in San Francisco.

The Authors@Google program "brings authors of all stripes to Google for informal talks centering on their recently published books.... Googlers are treated to readings of everything from serious literature and political analysis to pioneering science fiction and moving personal memoirs; past participants have ranged from novelist Salman Rushdie and economist Jeffrey Sachs to journalist Bob Woodward and U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain."

One writer fights the Indian Wars in her own little way

This weekend the New York Times (enjoy it while you still can) printed an article about the effect of the Twilight books/films on the Quileute people. By using them in her books, Stephenie Meyer inadvertently renewed the 200-year-and-counting war which has been waged against all Native American cultures. Does anyone from Team Jacob support the Quileute with their merchandise purchases? Does Stephenie with her book sales?

"To millions of 'Twilight' fans, the Quileute are Indians whose (fictional) ancient treaty transforms young males of the tribe into vampire-fighting wolves. To the nearly 700 remaining Quileute Indians, 'Twilight' is the reason they are suddenly drawing extraordinary attention from the outside — while they themselves remain largely excluded from the vampire series' vast commercial empire.

Just last month, MSN.com issued an apology to the Quileute for intruding on its territory while videotaping a 'Twilight' virtual tour in September. MSN.com sought permission from the Chamber of Commerce in nearby Forks, Wash., but didn’t pay the same courtesy to the Quileute."

Go to Hell - with Dante

Want to create a course that might have students - especially male students - reading Dante's Inferno? Link it to a video game.

In the video game Dante is no longer a reedy, introspective poet but a knight who returns home from the Crusades to find that his beloved Beatrice has been brutally murdered. Her innocent soul has been taken captive by Lucifer, and Dante must chase the archfiend into hell, fending off wave after wave of advancing demons with a mighty scythe.

. . .

"A great intellectual property can live a second or third time in new media, because it gives you a head start."

Asemic Writing: Literary or Visual Art?

Recently there's been a bit of talk about asemic writing. What is it?

Asemic writing has been made by poets, writers, painters, calligraphers, children, and scribblers, all around the world. Most people make asemic writing at some time, possibly when testing a new pen.

So is it scribbling or doodling? Not when it's created intentionally - as art - instead of functionally, as when testing a new pen. If, instead of doodling images, we doodle mock-words or even word-like representations, are we practicing asemic writing?

Educators talk about children going through distinct stages of "mock letters", "pseudowriting" and so on, when they're learning to write. Many of us made asemic writing before we were able to write words.

When does asemic writing become art? When a writer creates it? Or when a visual artist like Paul Klee or Mark Tobey creates it?

Looking at asemic writing does something to us. Some examples have pictograms or ideograms, which suggest a meaning through their shape. Others take us for a ride along their curves. We like some, we dislike others.

Clearly we derive meaning from asemic writing. But do we read it the way we read poetry or prose? Or is it mis-named? Should it instead be called "asemic art"?

Authors@Google

Harold Jaffe will present at the Google Authors Series on Friday, Feb 19, at noon, in San Francisco. Rushdie, Chomsky, Zizek, and other heavyweights have presented at Authors@Google.

Anyone who wants to attend should contact Hal so that he can give your name to Google; his guests will then be invited to lunch (on Google's tab).

Boys and their toys. Girls too.

Teachers know how difficult it is to persuade administrators to "allow" the use of technology in the classroom. It's perhaps a mark of envy that when I read "Don't knock blogging - it's an answer to our literacy problems" I knew it couldn't be about a high school in the U.S.A.

According to all the data, Daniel Moseley and Rahil Thobhani ought to hate writing. Educational research shows that many British schoolchildren are struggling with this basic skill, and that secondary school boys from poorer city areas are among those who flounder most.

But these two 11-year-olds sit in their school library talking passionately about letting their imaginations run riot, and how you can use suspense and dialogue to craft a good story.

Fortunately, we can assign blog writing to college students - who are also "struggling" with mastering writing. At the very least it will ensure they know how to do something other than play online games and copy-and-paste a research paper: Don't assume because they are twenty they are internet-literate (and don't assume because I'm fifty I'm not).

By the way, writing - online or offline - is a lifelong struggle for us all, which is as it should be.

Death in Texas

A pair of Amsterdam researchers, Andreas R.T. Schuck and Janelle Ward, published a study in Discourse and Society (Vol 19(1): 43–62) concerning the final statements of death row inmates in Texas.

Last statements of death row inmates represent a genre of discourse characterized by an acute situation in which to express final reflections. This article describes how Texas death row inmates give meaning to their situation by examining their last statements. Between December 1982 and November 2006, 379 offenders were executed on the Texas death row. Through the inspection of 283 last statements made available on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website, we identify strategies of self presentation.

Harold Jaffe's statements of Texas death row inmates, "Death in Texas," examines the variety of such statements, suggesting the differences in facing one's death. Not many people have a chance to sum up their lives, and these men and women are given a rare, privileged gift.

Eduardo Galeano on Brecht

From Century of the Wind, the third volume of a three volume tome of the history of the Americas, called Memory of Fire.

1942: Hollywood

"Brecht"

Hollywood manufactures films to turn the frightful vigil of humanity, to the point of annihilation, into sweet dreams. Bertolt Brecht, exiled from Hitler's Germany, is employed in this sleeping-pill industry. Founder of a theater that sought to open eyes wide, he earns his living at the United Artists studios, just one more writer who works office hours for Hollywood, competing to produce the biggest daily ration of idiocies.

On one of these days, Brecht buys a little God of Lucky for forty cents in a Chinese store and puts it on his desk. Brecht has been told that the God of Luck licks his lips each time they make him take poison.

Walls Around the World

On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, BBC Mundo looks at barriers, which are still standing -- or have gone up since -- around the world.

WALLS STILL STANDING

West Bank

Northern Ireland

Saudi Arabia

Melilla and Ceuta

Cyprus

Pakistan-Iran

Rio de Janiero

Mexico-US

India-Pakistan

Korean border

Western Sahara

Iraq-Kuwait

Botswana-Zimbabwe

Walls Around the World.

From Northern Ireland to South Korea to Cyprus -- walls once embedded take on a life of their own -- dividing countries, social economic classes, and in some cases, family members.

Since the beginning of the year, Rio de Janeiro has been building walls around its favelas -- shanty towns on the hills around the city -- which will eventually be surrounded by concrete with a total length of 8.6 miles.

At the end of the 20th Century, Spain began constructing barriers in Ceuta and Melilla, to prevent illegal immigration from Africa. The people of Ceuta and Melilla have paid the price of living in a fortified city.

Designed as a temporary measure to keep fighting Protestant and Catholic communities apart, many "peace walls" are stills standing. The most recent wall was built as last year at a primary school north of Belfast.

The border between Mexico and the United States is 1,988 miles long. The US government has built a metal wall along a third of it, at an estimated cost so far of $2.5 billion to prevent the arrival of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

Checkpoint 303 Beats Drum for Resistance

Checkpoint 303 composes activist breakbeats and middle-eastern electronica to promote peace, human rights and justice in the middle-east.

Their music is available for free download at http://www.checkpoint303.com or Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/checkpoint303.

Here's a piece the band recently wrote for Common Ground News Service (CGNews) available at: www.commongroundnews.org

Tear down the wall and dance!
06 March 2008

EAST JERUSALEM and LYON, FRANCE — We had nearly finished getting our gear off the stage when someone from the audience came up to congratulate us on our show. After telling us how much he enjoyed the music and video projection, he added, with a slightly troubled look on his face: “…but I have a problem. Isn’t it somehow wrong to dance to music that deals with the Palestinian cause?” He explained that while he found himself dancing to some of the more up-beat songs, he could not help asking himself whether it was okay to dance to the message our music embodies.

We were pleased to hear about his ‘dilemma’. This is precisely what our band, Checkpoint 303, is all about. Instead of telling the audience what to think about the issue of Palestine, which would be a ridiculously naïve attitude, we try to trigger a reflective process in our listeners.

This same question is put to us every now and again. Obviously there’s no universal answer. Every individual has to discover what they consider to be right, that’s the point; it’s ultimately all about the process of figuring it out. But for those who feel guilty grooving to the sound of a serious humanitarian issue, we have one consolation: silly I-love-you-baby lyrics need not be the unique criterion for danceable music.

This said, Checkpoint 303 is not a dance music band. The songs we consider successful are ones that involve the listener in the artistic process, songs in which the listener participates in creating the statement, as opposed to passively consuming a message. This can only be achieved by avoiding music with a ready-to-go, prêt-à-porter, take-away message.


How can this be achieved from a practical point of view? By contrast to other forms of musical activism, we do not rely on lyrics to convey our message. Checkpoint 303’s music is primarily based on field we record throughout the Middle East, and Palestine in particular—covering a large spectrum of predominantly urban sounds: people talking in the old city of Jerusalem, a traffic jam in Ramallah, excerpts of a local Bethlehem radio station, the sound of an identity control at an Israeli checkpoint, the chanting of a demonstration in the west bank, etc. We then transform the audio material into loops, onto which we add electronic beats, riffs and melodies played on oud (oriental lute), keyboard or guitar.


When our ‘sound catchers’, SC Yosh or Cheikh Julio, are on the street with their recording gear, they are not looking for a specific sound to convey a pre-defined impression or statement. The essence of our music is to capture, fragment, and reconstruct the soundtrack of daily life in the occupied Palestinian territories. Yet we don’t restrict our music to only portraying the suffering and hardship of life under occupation. The media is doing a fantastically wrong and biased job of exclusively depicting the negative aspects of life in this tormented region of the world. By contrast, our music includes rhythms of “normal” life, the supposedly insignificant things that never make headlines, but help make possible the very idea of “hope” in Palestine.


Many Palestinian families heroically try, against all odds, to get along with their lives, educate their children, and dream of a better future—one worth living for. There are positive stories to report from Palestine. Our attempt to make music based on objective field recordings in the Middle East is in itself a challenging intellectual exercise. But, at the end of the day, that is precisely what yields the necessary degree of realism and humanity that is the backbone of our music.
Our aim, then, is to blend the aesthetics of electronic music composition with the social, economical, and humanitarian dimensions of reality in Palestine in a way that actively involves the listener in shaping the message. But does this make our work political? Although it may be perceived as such, our creative intentions are not political per se. They are driven by fundamental humanitarian values. It seems to us that the universality of human rights should in theory be both the common ground and the starting point to achieve peace. Additionally, when it comes to the question of whether our art is politically correct or not, the answer is simple: we do not care as long as it is humanly correct. We are artists, not politicians; this allows us the luxury of being able to tell the truth from a humanitarian point of view with no fear of electoral consequences!

Electronic music and audiovisual experimentation are the tools Checkpoint 303 uses to react to both the virtual and physical walls the occupation has created. These walls are also being hacked by the flourishing Palestinian hip-hop and trip-hop scene (e.g. DAM, Ramallah Underground, G-Town, Arapeyat, etc.) but also international artists such as the British graffiti artist Banksy or the American indie songwriter and political activist David Rovics to name but a few.

###

This article is part of a special series on Art and Conflict, which surveys the work of art in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and examines the political dimensions of art in general.

Copyright permission is granted for publication.

Checkpoint 303 collaborates with film-makers, musicians, and visual artists from around the globe. Its free tunes from occupied territories are an act of resistance and a celebration of hope.

Checkpoint 303 was invited by Massive Attack to be a support band for three shows in the UK in 2007 and in France in 2008. We are also very much into performing in alternative venues and spaces where the aesthetics and meaning of sound/noise and its link to social activism can be reconsidered and explored...

Over the last two years, the band has performed electronic and live sets in several countries (USA, Australia, Canada, France, Palestine, Tunisia, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Japan, etc.) spreading the word for peace and human rights through a blend of twisted electronica, downtempo, break-beats, oriental riffs and field recordings...

Empty Slate

I recently found myself between stories. I had written some long overdue work that now finished left me without any new big ideas. Several days had gone by without an epiphany. Sure, I had some revisions to finish for submissions, but there was nothing new percolating in the pot. It was a strange feeling. Usually my mind is cluttered with unwritten (and unwritable) story lines, but this week I was an empty slate.

There must have been more creative space alloted to those old projects than I realized. I'm glad I got them out, although success was mixed. Some were not all as interesting once written as I hoped. However, the last chapter I think has not been written.

The question now is: What’s next? Where do other writers turn for inspiration: newspapers, cocktail parties, the box of old journals in the garage? Should I play mechanic and weld together spare out-takes? Or should I just relax and let the ideas start trickling back on their own accord.

I've a number of Fiction International volumes whose edgy nature quicken the blood and strike the imagination. I also carry a skinny reporter’s notebook in my back pocket for unexpected thoughts and observations. That eases the burden from the mind to both create and remember.

So my net is cast. The store is open for business. Bring me your tired and your hungry, your ironic, your iconic, bring me complexities, allegories, and metaphors, bring me time travel, self discovery, sex and contempt, bring me redemption, bring me tragedy. Keep it messy, imperfect, and real. Bring me these discordant, beautiful misanthropes with whom I can play life and make music. Just be sure to jostle me if I'm lost in a daydream.

Some thoughts on walls. With bonus reference to masturbation.

I work as a hired gun writer in the corporate world, and like everyone in office life, walls are very important to me. Increasingly, due to space constraints, money troubles, or sadism, many companies in recent years have moved employees into cubicles. I call them veal pens. I know from past experience that cube life is awful. Cubicles are designed in part to buffer noise, but they’re typically very ineffective. For six months at previous job I worked one cube away from a woman whose adolescent-Britney-Spears-attired daughter was tethered to her by the virtual umbilical of her cell phone. Apparently the girl had gotten caught smoking pot with one of the school bad boys and this was as close to affixing a Lo-Jack to her child as she could come without Social Services getting involved. She would call several times a day when she knew her daughter was between classes or at lunch, and especially every day after school. I heard half of the conversation about every bit of domestic family minutiae particularly that the girl was NOT TO HAVE BOYS OVER and NO she could not wear a lingerie top to school.

A current coworker told me about one cube-neighbor who had a habit of nervously rocking back and forth in her chair most of the day. "The chair creaked and squeaked. I tried to oil it, but it didn't work. I would complain sometimes but she was a transplanted New Yorker. She’d just say, 'Put on your fuckin' headphones!' I finally swapped chairs with her, but a couple of weeks later that one started squeaking. She was a chair killer."

Maybe worse than sound is smell. In cube life, if your coworker wears too much perfume or passes gas all day, you’re pretty much bathing in their odors. Another cube neighbor in my past was phobic about germs and had a hard-on for Lysol aerosol, spraying it all over his workspace at the beginning of the day and before returning to work after lunch, presumably in case someone had spread anthrax across his keyboard in his absence. Clouds of pine scent would waft over the partition and rain down on me like Agent Orange.

Everyone who's worked in a cubicle has one of these stories. In all of them it seems to me there is an underlying yearning for some solitude and space to yourself, a need which is increasingly disallowed in the modern office, the ethos of which typically prizes surveillance over privacy.

In my current job, there is both more and less privacy than in my cube life days. More privacy in that everyone in my group works in offices rather than cubicles, but less in that since I'm a contractor, I'm roomed with two other members of my team in an office smaller than ones occupied by one full-time employee. I don't mind much at this point because I like my coworkers and they're both women. In prior contracts I've roomed with men: typically tech geeks who were so invested in the virtual world that they neglect almost everything real-world, including and especially hygiene and housekeeping. During these times, I've worked in near darkness (primarily nocturnal creatures, tech geek eyes can only bear the illumination provided by their dim monitors) and a funky blend of B.O. and the aromas of old pizza and coffee. One guy was so gung-ho to get hired full-time that he would sleep in the office to show his dedication to pulling the long hours. With the poor ventilation it filled up overnight with the odors of his nocturnal gas emissions fueled by eating burritos and vending machine fare.

Certainly, offices represent status in the workplace. They indicate the inhabitant is important and valued and trusted enough to have privacy. The really important people have locks on their doors, a fact that is excruciatingly titillating to the rest of us, because, while it's never talked about, everyone knows that locks on doors mean office sex, either accompanied or solo. When such privacy is not provided, I tend to find it. Whereas some people are drawn to the furnishings or fine decor of a house or office, my eye naturally gravitates to closets, alcoves, and other secluded areas. I’m always wondering, “could I fit in there?” I adopted this practice as a child when I used to hide from schoolyard predators in one of the overturned tractor tires at the periphery of the schoolyard.

Since my jobs for much of my life have been menial and/or clerical, I've often had the luxury of having keys to storage rooms or other lightly trafficked places where I could hide from the Man, read a book, have a little nap, or perhaps indulge in a little stress-and-boredom-relieving office onanism. And let’s face it, sex is sweet, but sex on company time is sublime.

The Korean Reunification

On Monday, I saw a documentary as part of the San Diego Asian Film Festival, called Tiger Spirit.
Korean Canadian filmmaker Min Sook Lee intended her project to focus on the elusive and possibly extinct Korean Tiger, which is an important symbol for the Korean fighting spirit.
During filming however Lee's attention turns to the 56-year-old wall separating the two Koreas and millions of family members.
The heavily guarded DMZ was created in 1953, following the 3-year Korean war that ended in stalemate and armistice between the communist-backed North and U.S.-backed South.
At the time, Koreans assumed reunification would shortly follow.
Separation then was 'merely' geographical. It has over the years become a wide cultural expanse. South Korea has opened to capitalism while North Korea of course has grown more isolated.
During the film, we meet former North Koreans who defected south and find themselves strangers adrift in a foreign country. They must attend indoctrination classes to repatriate. They rely on each other. They start families. Get jobs. But when they close their eyes, they still dream of the Korea they know in the North. They can never return.
However, the film culminates with a 3-day reunification event between family members separated during the war. Those who fled to the South are now well into their 70s, 80s and 90s. They are picked by a lottery to attend. Many who have applied discover that their siblings and cousins have died off in the five decades.
The reunions are tightly controlled and observed. Lee doesn't tell us exactly who is observing. We know the North Koreans are under watch, but we must also assume the South Korean government has its own interests in the event. Participants are allowed only two hours of privacy in a hotel room during one of the days.
Those who are selected see old men and women looking back at them. They try to communicate through the barriers of time and dementia. As the last meeting ends, the North Koreans board buses to return them to Pyongyang. Their old family members waving them off can be heard crying and breaking down as they see their siblings probably for the last time.
It's a heartbreaking tale created by one of the most enduring walls of the last half century.
-Ned

Walt Whitman, Ad Man or Mad Man?

Here's an ad agency using Walt Whitman to sell jeans:



Can a poem sell? Of course. Should a poem be used to sell? Well, Walt's dead, so he has no say.

Teachers could see the ad campaign as a teaching tool, to sell students on poetry.

In New York? Come to a reading!

A Reading to Honor the Artist in Wartime issue of Fiction International. At The Lounge, Hudson View Gardens, Pinehurst Avenue and 183rd Street, NYC, Sunday, November 8th at 4:00 p.m.

Featuring contributors to the issue:

Harold Jaffe "one of our finest literary terrorists / freedom fighters" – Paradoxa

Patricia Eakins "intriguing and entertaining" – Greg Boyd, Asylum

A Tribute to Daniel Berrigan, S.J. "[Berrigan] deserves a place of honor on this century's highest shelf." - Boston Post

Reading in tribute to Father Berrigan: Joel Allegretti, Steve Brouwer, Michael Crosby, Gordon Gilbert, Deirdre Mahoney, and Peter Martin.

Harold Jaffe is the author of fifteen books of fiction and creative nonfiction, most recently Jesus Coyote (a docu-novel), and Beyond the Techno-Cave: A Guerrilla Writer's Guide to Post-Millennial Culture, a collection of creative nonfiction. Jaffe's books have been translated into Japanese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish. Jaffe is editor-in-chief of Fiction International.

Patricia Eakins is the author of The Hungry Girls and Other Stories and The Marvelous Adventures of Pierre Baptiste (a novel), which won both the NYU Press Prize for Fiction and the Capricorn Prize of the Writer’s Voice. She is the recipient of two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and The Paris Review has awarded her the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction.

Poet, playwright, and biographer Daniel Berrigan, S.J., is an internationally renowned peace activist, a member of the Catonsville Nine and the Plowshares Eight. He was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is also a recipient of the Lamont Poetry Prize, the Thomas Merton Award, the Pax Christi USA Pope Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award, and the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award. He has taught religious studies and theology in various universities and has been a contributing editor to Sojourners, a magazine of faith, politics, and culture.

Suggested donation of $7 includes one free drink and free snacks. Reception after to meet the writers. For more information call 212-923-7800, x1342.

Meta Roles II

What is the role of a meta narrative. When is it used effectively?

Meta narratives, which are secondary narratives outside of the main story line, serve to intentionally disrupt the main discourse.

Author and SDSU professor Stephen Paul Martin said recently that writers who use meta narratives walk a fine line between annoying the reader – forcing the reader to see the work from a new distance - and losing the reader entirely.

He said meta narratives are intentionally alienating – a reference to Bavarian playwright Bertolt Brecht’s alienation effect.

Brecht used meta elements in his epic theater in the 1940s in order to discomfort his audience and wake them from the suspension of disbelief.

According author and SDSU professor Harold Jaffe, Brecht's alienation effect compelled his audience to think about what they were viewing.

"That is, it encourages the reader/viewer to be pent rather than purged in the Aristotelian sense," he wrote in an email. "The alienation works like conceptual art where thinking is privileged over feeling."

Prompted by Dr. Jaffe to delve further into the alienation effect, I reached out to Martin via email and asked him to elaborate on his comments.

Martin replied that metafiction is often called anti-fiction because it destroys the illusion that a conventional story relies on.

“Another way to think about metafiction is to think about what we mean when we praise a work for being spellbinding, for being able to hypnotize us so that we believe that black marks on a white surface are actually people in places doing things,” he wrote. “One of the crucial disruptive functions of metafiction is to break this spell, to expose the verbal machinery that allows an author to weave a spell, to show us what the spell is made of, to show us how the magician/author performs his trick, and so destroy the spell's power.”

In our modern culture, individuals spend most of their waking hours operating in virtual worlds -- at computers or in front of televisions -- being fed various fictional illusions from politics to consumer advertising. All of these are narrative fictions, said Martin.

“There are also economic, historical, scientific, anthropological, and personal fictions that cast spells on us to varying degrees, and the combination of these spells creates a consensual hallucination we've been trained to call reality,” Martin wrote.

Metafiction can help us to break this spell and create enough separation from the language of authoritative discourses for what they are -- thus neutralizing their power, he said.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," Martin wrote. "Metafictions show us what the man behind the curtain is doing, and how he does it. They disrupt the flow of comforting and seductive illusions.”

The money wall

The rich love to create money walls between themselves and "the rest." It doesn't matter if the walls they erect ultimately boomerang and take them down.

The argument of this fascinating and deeply provoking book is easy to summarise: among rich countries, the more unequal ones do worse according to almost every quality of life indicator you can imagine. They do worse even if they are richer overall, so that per capita GDP turns out to be much less significant for general wellbeing than the size of the gap between the richest and poorest 20 per cent of the population (the basic measure of inequality the authors use).

meta-roles

We're workshopping a story today about a helicopter pilot in Allied occupied West Germany. It's filled with detailed descriptions of post-Nazi Germany, but also a twist which promises to get mixed reviews. The third person character, McKay, is also writing the story, which is being reviewed by his wife Suzan.

She is making various suggestions to McKay about revising the story. This is a meta approach attempting to make the reader an self-conscious party. The couple also discuss later details in the story, which foreshadows those events.

At the chapter's conclusion, Suzan asks McKay what she looks like as a character.

"Are we sitting down at a table? Are we drinking wine? Is it red or white? Do I look lovely tonight? Are you serious about sailing our boat to Hawaii?"

"Sitting down, red wine, very lovely, quite serious."

"Oh," she said. "Will you pour me another glass please?"

Interesting technique. But does it fly?

Drive In Saturday

YMO - Cue


Kraftwerk - Computer Love


The Clash - Justice Tonight/Kick It Over

Regarding FI

Fiction International embraces the unique. That extends to various ways writers tackle narrative perspective. In the Freak issue, "The Dummy of the Ventriloquist's Dummy" is told through a dialogue between a ventriloquist and a pair of rebellious dummies. In "Haunting Your House," the narrator's benefactor is convinced his apartment is haunted by ghosts. We find that his apartment is indeed being visited, but by former Chinese tenants evicted and angry at the gentrification he represents. He just doesn't see them or their hatred, so they may as well be ghosts.

Thumbing through FI's Pain issue, I'm reminded that narrative can be told through letters and memoir just as well as third-person omniscient.

This is my first blog for Fiction International. I plan to make various observations on narrative process, which may be of interest to other writers. When I scribbled this out I was in a coffee shop with my reporter's notebook, also thumbing through some midnight story ideas.

One strikes me: a confrontation between two writers over proprietorship of written work. One is miffed when he learns that his colleague has annexed some of his material into one of his own stories. He essentially wrote through the scene. If one writer constructs a world, are others allowed to 'pass' through? I'll write it out and see how it develops.

Alum: Roland Goity

Ever wonder what happens to Fiction International assistant editors? Do they wind up sleeping in a dusty corner of San Diego, being harassed and arrested by San Diego's finest? Or worse - sleeping in a dusty office in a university somewhere?

Worry not more: one alum, Roland Goity, is editor of the illustrious online journal Lit 'N Image - well worth a visit. While you are there, take a look at the gorgeous photographs of John Patrick Ayson, another FI alum.

Gods and Little Girls

Gods and Little Girls

What is worse? To die silently, as life seeps from your wrinkles or to walk panic stricken through the streets worried about the meal for your little chicks? From one side of the river the other looks so enticing. You have a meal in front of you now. Life is good isn't it little chicken? And I can stroke your hair and help you braid it. I can be here with you. Before, I worked while servants prepared your meal on a silver platter and you ate in solitude. Is that better?

I like that you're here.

I do too. Tonight I like it. Tomorrow, I will wake up gaunt of worry before the sun rises and roam the streets in fear that there will be no food for you. I will beg in doorways for work and scour the sea floor for crabs with the net of my hands. And I will not rest until there is enough to fatten you like dough.

And then we can be together?

Yes, then we can be together again. Beneath the stars, and I can share with you more secrets of life.

What is the biggest secret?

The biggest secret is that comfort is meaningless. Comfort is like trying to hold water in your hands. People work their lives to keep the water from leaking through their fingers. No matter how much money they make, or how much comfort they have, they always find more worries. Everywhere they turn, there will be a worry waiting, like a skull smiling at them. The great masters knew this and painted it on canvases that once donned our foyer walls. But some ignore this secret, and they will ruin themselves and the rest of us trying to be comfortable. But no matter how much they toss and turn, their beds will never feel right. They may live longer than I, even though I am old, and they may look young with balms, but they are dying inside as the air seeps from them.

Do they love?

You want to talk of love little chick? Everybody should love. Let me tell you a story about love. Your grandpapa and I loved across a thousand years. I think we loved each other before we were born. When our love was already written, and welcomed us to it. That is how old love is. Yes, chicken everybody should love. When we are born, angels wait for us to open our eyes and drape love around us like a velvet robe. And they are happy because love wants nothing more than to share itself.

Like me and you? Like when we nuzzle each other? Like when you wrap your shawl around me at night?

Yes chicken. Like that. Are you finished eating? You go ahead and finish. I want you fat. I am old, and have already had my fill. Your grandmother needs just a few morsels, nothing more than a mouthful. Let me tell you more about love. When you were born, I heard angels. They were on either side of my ears, and they whispered over me to each other about your beautiful brown eyes. I said, I know, she has her mother’s eyes. And they said, her smile, look at the dimples her smile makes. And I said, yes, she has her mother's dimples. They said, it’s as if her eyes and mouth smile at once. And I whispered to you, because I didn't want to seem like I was eavesdropping, the world is smiling with you.

Was mama beautiful?

She was beautiful. A mother always thinks her children are beautiful. But I have ears too. I heard them say as they walked on the path outside our home that she was the most beautiful girl in the whole valley. Some of the old superstitious ones said she was too beautiful. They came and said a prayer at our doorstep to keep out jealous spirits. You know, some people believe that spirits are easily tempted. Beautiful girls, they say, cause trouble in the heavens between gods. Jealous spirits like that are very dangerous. Some say they will put a scar across a beautiful girl's face to make her ugly, or cast them with disease or lure them into the water and drown them. Then they will try to take the form of the beautiful ones. But they cannot take human form and become even angrier and more jealous. That's why old superstitious women say prayers and light votive candles at the church. They say beautiful girls make spirits even more dangerous which is hard on the village. Don't look so frightened chicken. Those are just old tales. But that's part of life and you should know this.

Is that what happened to mama? Was she so beautiful that a jealous spirit hurt her?

No. Your mama died while you were being born. Those are just stories. The only spirits I believe in are good ones: angels who watch over all of us. I told your mama just after you were born that I would look after you. I told her that you would never have to worry. I would make sure you had a full belly, and the rain would stay off your head and the ground would not cut your feet because you would always have a pair of shoes. I told her I would also teach you about life, and teach you how to live a good, rich life that would be meaningful. And when you fell in love and married, that's when I would leave this life, and not a moment before.

Will jealous spirits hurt me too?

No, that's enough talk of that. You are beautiful like your mother. There are no jealous spirits, so wipe that worried look off your face. You're through with your plate? Okay, I'll have the rest. Why did you only eat half a piece of bread? You finish this bread, and I'll take the rest of this drumstick. Okay. Besides, there's another tale if you care to believe it, that children who are watched over by their grandmothers are especially protected from jealous spirits. It's one of the most powerful medicines in the world. Grandmothers are the best protection for little girls in the world. So you have nothing to worry about. Do you have enough blanket? Okay. Now let’s go to sleep before you start worrying again. I want to be awake before the household finds us in their doorway. Tomorrow I will find us a better place to sleep and a bed for you my darling chicken. Tomorrow we will have our own dinners and a roof over our heads. There, close your eyes and nuzzle your head in my chest. That's good. Let's dream about angels and love.

Can we make art with "fortunate failures"?

In the "Notes From the Underground" blog, James Curcio speculates about "fortunate failures":

You may set up a class on a div, and check it out in a browser and discover that it did something totally different than you had hoped, or you may apply a filter when producing an audio track, with similar results. Sometimes, those results are undesirable, and you backtrack. But other times, it drives things in a completely new direction.

That for me, is creativity. Not the intention that got you started in the first place.

Actually, both are creative. It's not a contest. You now have two potential artworks and are free to pursue both to their conclusions. One is serendipitous and the other intentional, not one good and the other bad or one legitimate and the other false.