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October 10, 2004
How Not To Answer A Question
I think I understand why Stanley Crouch punches people in the mouth. Self-importance can really be a pain in the ass. Having never been copyedited myself, I shudder to think if someone like Mark Twain had an editor, that said editor considered his tweaking a mark of superiority. I find the prospect of suffering such chiggers completely loathesome, especially if they were 'colleagues'.
When I spoke to Star Parker last night, she mentioned something that sounds a bit familiar. When she writes for Scripps-Howard, her words must be repurposed if they are to be used outside of their control. There's a good chance that I'll never get to write for a nice fancy publishing house, which I could die happy knowing. But what a burden it must be to be the bearer of contemptuous eyes. Vetted though one may be by guardians of formalism, one still suffers the stinging little bites. And such words are to be more powerful than the sword?
Ahh what the heck. We all relish a little verbal combat, I suppose. But the fact that some have decided to restrict the diversity of their activity as humans strictly to verbal combat ought to recognize, intellects they must be, that unilateral disarmament carries with it certain risks. And in a world where maintaining one's reputation in itty bitty literary circles of New York hangs on words, it must be awfully tempting to quote the Notorious BIG. Touch my chedda feel my Baretta.
It's a wonder that being well-read in and of itself seems to be a pre-requisite for being considered sufficiently knowledgeable to be held as relatively serious. And yet if there is no universal standard (which I'm sure none would assert) what is the point? A writer writes, and sometimes a writer fights. But what's the point of writing if your audience is to be so steeply stewed in literature that everything merits criticism? Why not just quote the Bible and leave it at that? Well, because experience counts. Writers have to live and then spew, and so what if that spew stinks? Does everything invite comparison? This is a question I needn't have answered, because I don't care. Much.
What's better? A thick skin, a plastic ego or a quick left? Don't ask me, I make my money in a far less subjective world. Thank God.
Anyway I suppose all that is an object lesson in why academics and other writers-for-a-living probably stay away from this raucous and wild place known as the blogosphere. It can get ugly, even among the refined.
It certainly would be a shame if the blogosphere would degenerate into incestuous slapboxing. It's part of the risk of being connected. But it's rather annoying to see that we often opine without being connected - I mean what's the point of having the technology if it's not exploited for what it does best which is transcending time and space while still leaving enough distance to be brutally honest and otherwise transparent? Of course doing so makes people realize how insignificant they are, which can be disconcerting. Enough.
Speaking of all that, Derrida is dead. Long live Ernest Gaines.
Posted by mbowen at October 10, 2004 01:48 PM
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Comments
Have you read Peggy Noonan's "What I Saw at the Revolution"?
She writes about having the policy wonks - she calls them "mice" - trying to change her speeches, which were pure poetry. Remember the speech Pres. Reagan gave when the Challenger blew up? Here's her final paragraph:
"The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them - this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"
Somebody told her to change the quote at the end from "touch the face of God" to "reach out and touch someone - touch the face of God." She threatened murder and the quote wasn't changed. It was from a poem entitled "High Flight" that Pres. Reagan was familiar with; he told her so when he called to thank her for the speech.
Can you imagine, an AT&T commercial (or whatever it was) shoehorned into that speech?
Posted by: Laura at October 10, 2004 06:50 PM