Creative Writing Part 3

A quick proviso on this section of the story. This is my first crack at real dialogue in a long time. I think it turned out decent, but there’s quite a lot of vulgarity, so those that aren’t a fan of off color words are forewarned.

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Maybe I should call her. It’s been so long, and I miss her so long some days. There’s probably a statute of limitations for calling up old girlfriends out of the blue, but I don’t know if I really care about that right now. Because I’m still sitting at the same desk, looking at the same blank screen trapped in the same deafening silence of my own restless mind. It feels good to walk down memory lane from time to time, and it offered me quite the distraction from the task at hand. I’ve never really had to procrastinate in my life; grade school and college offered little challenge, but I got myself into the habit of finishing my work prior to goofing off. It’s an approach that has stuck even to this day, so I find it difficult and aggravating being forced to not do work. I need another cigarette. I try to cut down or quit, but it never seems to stick. It’s one of the few things about me I wish I could change. Even still, there’s no fighting it now. I refuse to smoke indoors, so I take to the porch behind my house. There’s a nice lounge chair out there that I altered to have an ashtray built right into the armrest. I’m quite proud of that. Nicotine is an odd beast. Even back in my Philly days I never took hard drugs with extreme addictive qualities. They weren’t really Douglas’ scene, and the few of his friends that would offer me coke were easy enough to politely decline. The cravings for nicotine are strange. When they start, they’re never obvious enough. It’s not that you know immediately that you want a cigarette. You just feel something immaterial gnawing at your insides. There’s a hole somewhere inside you that you can’t fill no matter how you try. It’s uncomfortable, but not unbearable. It’s only after you realize that the act of smoking makes these feelings go away that you make the connection and begin to actively crave cigarettes. It’s when the irritability hits that you really have to do something about it.

I pull out my cell phone and call Douglas. We try to keep in contact as much as we can, but we haven’t spoken on the phone for over six months. I get congratulatory cards from him whenever a new book hits the stands, but that’s been the extent of our recent contact. He picks up after the third ring. “George, buddy! How the fuck are you? Fuck, it’s been ages!” Douglas was as enthusiastic and vulgar as ever.

“Eh, I’m doing all right I guess. Still getting used to the complete lack of hustle and bustle out here in the middle of nowhere. Remind me, you’re still trolling the streets of Philly, yes?”

“Nah, I got out months ago. Too many fucking guns, man. Really ruins your good spirits watching the news, you know? I followed in your footsteps and headed out to Cali. Frisco, to be precise. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, George. I fucking love it out here.”

“Pretty sure LA and San Fran are pretty different scenes, Doug.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. So how’s the new book going? I’ve heard some rumors.” Apparently, my writing difficulties were beginning to make waves among the literary upper crust.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I’m lost and nothing’s coming out of my head but garbage. Ellen and Jeffrey are starting to get nervous.” Ellen is my publicist and Jeffery is my editor at Harper Collins.

“Seriously? Fuck them, man! After all the money you’ve made them? You tell those cocksuckers to go suck on some talentless hack’s dick and see how it tastes. Fucking leeches, god!” Talking to Douglas when he gets animated is not unlike being in the middle of a Tarantino film. “You need to relax, buddy. Get your mind off the work. Take a tab, find some loose pussy, do something that doesn’t involve writing.”

“I stopped dropping acid years ago, Doug. And where the hell am I going to find loose women? I’m in Vermont. I know every single person in this little town. I’m trapped.”

“Well, shit, man. Get your ass out to the coast and I’ll take care of ya.”

“My publicist will fucking kill me if I take a vacation now…Hey Doug, when’s the last time you talked to Vickie?” I didn’t really like calling her that nickname, but Douglas only referred to her as Vickie.

“I don’t know, maybe a couple months ago. She’s still in Philly far as I know. You gettin’ bit by the fuck bug?” Such a horrifying phrase. I didn’t even ask him before he offered to text me her cell number. “Hey, knock ‘em dead, stud. I always thought you crazy kids were perfect for each other. Get into a car, drive down to Old City, fuck her brains out for a weekend, come back and writing the greatest fucking book ever known. I know you have it in you. Seriously, no bullshit. You are a great friend and an even greater storyteller. And don’t fucking wait six months before you call me again, dick.”

“Alright, Doug. I’ll talk to you soon.”

I lit another cigarette. Conversations with Douglas have a tendency to be somewhat mentally draining. Still, it was good to talk to an old friend and get my mind off the work that isn’t going to be done any time soon. A few seconds after I hang up, my phone starts buzzing and there, clear as day, is Victoria’s phone number, still with the 267 Philadelphia area code. The phone buzzes again; Douglas has also seen fit to send along a quite graphic visual aid that I don’t need to explain or show to anyone ever again for the rest of my life. I hastily delete it from my phone. That crazy bastard. I couldn’t call Victoria now. I need a plan. Some kind of reason to see my long lost love other than professional frustration and personal longing. I decide to call Ellen and give myself a less transparent reason to return to Philadelphia.

She picks up the phone staggeringly quickly. “How many pages?” Who needs hellos?

“You wouldn’t want to know. I can, however, write a pretty stirring and exacting novella about the wall in my writing room, but I doubt that would interest you.” I reply, trying to sound both resolute and dejected at the same time. I’m aiming for pity. Seems like I fail, especially considering her exasperated sigh.

“So are you going to call Jeffrey or should I?” This is what our relationship has become. No hellos or how-are-yous, just a ravenous hunger for finished pages and the paycheck that follows them. We used to be friends. We used to be cordial.

“Come on, now. We don’t need to tell Jeffrey every little thing now, do we?”

“What do you want, George? I have things to do.”

“I need you to set up a signing.”

“You’re kidding, right? This book’s supposed to be on the shelves in two months, we haven’t seen a treatment, a synopsis, a single written word about it, and now you want to go on a signing tour? Are you trying to give me an aneurysm?” I’m starting to wonder if it’s even worth going through this trauma. Then I see Victoria’s face in my mind’s eye and I make the decision to soldier on.

“Did I say tour? Will you fucking listen to me? I want one signing. One. In Philly. Old City. I need to go back to my writing roots. I need to see old friends. I need inspiration. And I need a reason to go back there. So I want to do a high profile signing that everybody in the tri-state area is going to know about and want to go to. Print ads, TV, whatever you can do. I want it to be big.”

There’s a long pause as Ellen mulls over the amount of work this entails and weighs the work output of a happy writer compared to a frustrated one deep in the mire of writer’s block. Finally, she speaks. “Fine. I’ll email you the details when I confirm a date. Even the bums are going to be lined up for this one. Should I set up airfare to Philly International?” She’s already starting to cheer up. She’s aching for something to do, and I just gave it to her. I can hear it in her voice.

“Nah, I think I’m going to drive.” You could audibly hear Ellen every time she shrugged. It’s a hell of a thing, and because of it I could tell she reacted with a shrug.

“Whatever works, George. I’ll let you know soon. And please try to get something down on paper for all of our sakes.”

“I’ll do my best, Ellen. Goodbye.”

Excitement grips me as I end the call. The spark is back. I haven’t felt this way in months. I try to write again, but too many thoughts are buzzing around my head to focus. I’m hungry. Haven’t eaten anything since a meager English muffin for breakfast. I would eat, then I would have to do something that didn’t involve writing whatsoever. Perhaps a movie. I think I’ve done enough for today.

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A quick side note on the musical piece attached to this section of the story. I’m a huge fan of The Who. They have almost always been my personal favorite of the big three British bands of the sixties. I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. I’ve been listening to The Beatles almost non-stop for about three weeks, and have come to the conclusion that they’re the greatest band in the history of the universe. Late to the party, I know, but it needs to be said.

This post was written to the tune of The Beatles.

Creative Writing Part Two

The second and third parts of this little thing are done. I’m liking how it’s going so far, evolving in its own way that seems to be beyond my absolute control. More to come, possibly tomorrow but definitely over the weekend.

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Philadelphia was a wonderful time of my life. I had just inked a long term book deal with Harper Collins based on my manuscript for the first Songs of the Diamond book. I had been living in Atlanta, but the southern summer heat didn’t agree with me and I wanted a change in scenery. Philly existed in a more temperate climate, and I loved the history and architecture of certain parts of the city. I had real money for the first time in my life and decided to splurge on a gorgeous one bedroom apartment in Old City. I even bought an old fashioned typewriter and quill pen set to see if that would lend some authenticity to the creative process for my next book, which ended up turning into The Era of Heartache. Kind of an odd book to produce during such a generally cheerful time of my life, but sometimes things just work out that way. I would take walks around the city during the day, exploring Penn’s Landing and Walnut Street. Nights would often be spent on South Street; I was twenty-six at the time, so I wasn’t completely out of place among the younger populace of the city. I was in the best shape of my life, had all the confidence in the world, and turned myself into quite the social butterfly. Writing was so easy for my back then. I didn’t even have to focus on what was in front of me. My hand was like a faucet that would spew forth fantastical ideas and long, flowing passages of beauty whenever its pen touched paper. At that time I was very much in the habit of writing my first drafts by hand and revising and proofreading as I typed into an easier to deal with format for my editor and publisher. I had more free time than I knew what to do with, and sought out many of life’s chemical pleasures. I’m not a big drug user these days, but back then I was willing to try a lot of things. My psychedelic journeys were certainly fun at the time, but there is a time and a place for such things. The one tangible good that came out of my drug use was Victoria.

We crossed paths at a party thrown by Douglas, a literary agent who introduced me to both Harper Collins and LSD. He wasn’t actually my literary agent, but he managed to be gregarious enough to read my manuscript and pass it along to the publisher before we had even met face to face. Indeed, Douglas, was one of the major factors that led to my decision to move to Philly. Shortly after I finished the opening parts of The Era of Heartache, Douglas asked me pretty matter-of-factly if I had ever tried psychotropic drugs. At the time I hadn’t, and he offered me the opportunity to have some mushrooms and see where it took me. I think he assumed it would enhance my imagination and by extension my writing. His heart was in the right place, but I’m not exactly Hunter S. Thompson, nor do I want to be. Still, this guy gave me my first big break and was the sole reason I was being so lavishly compensated for just being me. He didn’t even take a cut out of the contract. Perhaps he expected one, but I was young and ignorant and he never showed any ill will toward me. I indulged him and myself and went along with the idea. Trying to explain an instance of tripping on mushrooms after the fact can be a bit difficult. Your head swims while incomprehensible visions assault your brain. It’s quite the experience. I wasn’t affected in any deep or meaningful way by the events of that evening, but I enjoyed myself and Douglas’ company enough to continue on these sojourns periodically. I traded up from mushrooms to LSD; the synthetic compound offering more sustained and stronger hallucinations. Douglas began to introduce me to his extended circle of friends and invite me to parties.

We didn’t drop acid at the party I met Victoria. This was probably for the best; I don’t think my true personality shines through as well as it could when I’m under the influence. We were drinking, of course, but it shouldn’t be too hard to deduce that being drunk and tripping are two entirely different states of mind. I probably knew between half and two thirds of the people there, and the beginning of the night consisted of a lot of hand shakes and introductions with people whose names I forgot almost immediately. It was a little weird at that stage of my life being introduced by Douglas as the next big thing in the literary world to all of these strangers; Songs of the Diamond hadn’t been published yet, and I was just some guy. It was embarrassing to say the least, but I smiled through it.

Victoria’s was one of the many faces that passed in front of me early on in the party, but unlike everyone else, she became indelibly burned into my mind. She was a beautiful woman; this was plain to see. Raven hair, long and thick that had a tendency to fall over her face and obscure her left eye. The eye that was visible was a deep forest green, creating a strong sense of mysterious and deeply intriguing dichotomy on her face. Her body was well proportioned; she was no supermodel, but no one in his right mind would ever be embarrassed to be seen with her. When I took her hand I felt a jolt of electricity shoot through my entire body. Instant attraction. The wry smile on her face seemed to indicate her own interest. It didn’t even phase me when Douglas called me Tolkien’s heir apparent or the next Dickens or something equally ludicrous. But just as we were beginning to get acquainted, Douglas whisked me away to some other corner of the flat to meet even more people whose names didn’t matter to me. I could only hear one name in my head. I was determined not to let the night end without reconvening with her.

It was a fantastic night. Douglas was well connected in the literary world and had a full cabinet of expensive and extravagant wines and liquors, none of which he bought with his own money. I spent the rest of the night sipping delectable whiskeys, bourbons and scotches of all shapes, sizes, and ages, while having delightfully pedantic conversations about art, politics, philosophy and past loves. No matter how engrossed I became in whatever verbal tête-à-tête in which I may have been partaking, I always kept one eye searching the house for any signs of Victoria. I would wager that about three hours passed before I saw that unmistakable streak of jet black hair reveal itself from the crowd of revelers. Our eyes met. She winked at me and nodded her head toward the open double doors that led to the balcony on the second floor of Douglas’ apartment. As she moved toward the open air, I hastily excused myself from whatever subject I had immediately forgotten the second I caught a glimpse of her, refilled my glass with some devastatingly free Johnny Walker Blue and joined her under the night sky.

We talked for what seemed like hours. She threw some playful jokes about Douglas’ embellished introduction. I deflected them with self-deprecating aplomb. We went through the standard relationship starting talking points: childhood memories, towns in which we lived, colleges attended and degrees attained, future plans and so on. She was an intoxicating human being, the physical embodiment of a slow drink of barrel aged whiskey. And she had some tough competition considering the heavenly blue label scotch sitting in the rocks glass in my right hard. I was pleased to see that Douglas had become wise to the goings on of our balcony retreat and turned himself into an impromptu bouncer. He did a hell of a job giving us our privacy. I lit a cigarette, she produced her own and coyly waited for me to provide her with fire. The orange glow of my the flame from my lighter licked and sputtered in the breeze, throwing wild light and shadow over her verdant, sylvan eyes. We smoked and drank and talked, each of us using lulls in the conversation as an opportunity to inch closer to one another.

Eventually, Douglas poked his head through the closed curtain to inform us that the guests were beginning to leave. We followed him back into the house holding hands, said our goodbyes and exchanged pleasantries to mutual friends. We could not bring ourselves to break our grip on each other, perhaps out of fear that we would never touch again if we made the mistake of letting go. She came home with me that night and we made love. It was magic. For the next two years, we were inseparable. She was my best critic and the ultimate support system. I was never a fan of dedication pages in my books, but every novel I wrote in Philadelphia was dedicated to Victoria. Some super fans of mine refer to this as my Victoria Period. Our relationship never actually ended, per se. I made the decision to move to LA and write screenplays. She couldn’t bring herself to leave her family, her friends or her job. I said I understood, but inside I was crushed. We haven’t talked in over five years. If I couldn’t have her, I didn’t want to think of her. It was too painful. I took her picture out of the frame that now sits on my desk shortly after I left LA. It reminded me too much of my one regret.

MORE TO COME

This post was written to the tune of The Beatles’ Help

Creative Writing Project, Part 1

Considering that The Machine of Dreams has died on the vine, I wanted to do some different creative writing. I’m hoping to overcome the clichés of the central plot (as it is at the moment), and at the same time, I am trying my best to avoid becoming meta. This is an exercise more than anything. No title as of yet. Enjoy.

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One of the most overused clichés in a sea of overused clichés is the ideal of writing what you know. I’ve always hated the phrase. I got where I am today specifically because I wrote what I didn’t know. And here I am, one of the most well loved authors of the past decade. I don’t have any intimate knowledge of most of my more popular subject maters, and this is why I have come to the conclusion that all that truly makes a good writer is skill. I possess more finely honed skills than most, and am all the better for it. You stick you neck out and you take a chance and it can lead to something great. But what happens when you have nothing about which to write? No matter the skill set at your disposal, you can’t write if you have no subject. You can write about writing and the art of writing, but such reflexive and reflective approaches can only get you so far without true inspiration. Hell, I’m trying to work right now, staring at a blank sheet of paper in front of a blank word processor screen with its sad, solitary little cursor flashing in the top left corner. I take a sip of coffee and come close to spitting it all over the paper. It’s gone cold and chalky. More disappointment. I’ve got to move. My ass hurts. My legs are starting to seize. The last thing I should do is get up from my chair. I’ve got deadlines that need to be considered, publishers and fans breathing down my beck for new content. This is what I get from writing so much so quickly. Thirteen bestsellers in five years. Twenty-two total in the last decade. Successful movies that have broken records at the box office for films that don’t have men running around in capes or explosions every two minutes. To implement a bit of a bad pun, I’ve written myself into a corner. Fuck it, I need to move.

It’s too sunny out. My eyes can’t adjust quickly enough, my corneas burn and I need to shield my face like some kind of goddamned vampire. I used to get out of the house. I would get up, bang out thirty pages of manuscript like it was nothing and enjoy the world guilt free. I hate guilt. It doesn’t make sense to feel guilt. I usually don’t feel guilty about anything; I’m a successful guy, and it doesn’t come up too often. That was a pretty conceited turn of phrase, but I don’t really know how else to say it. Walking to the Dunkin Donuts on the corner to get a half decent cup of actually hot coffee should give me some time to think, clear the cobwebs, get some original thoughts flowing through my brain. It’s not like I don’t have any ideas at all. I could just throw out another book in the Songs of the Diamond cycle in a fortnight without breaking a sweat. But it’s not challenging. And as much as my many fans would probably hate me to say it, I think the whole fantasy genre has gotten rather stale and played out. I want to do something new, you know? No zombies or vampires or hard boiled detectives or sword and sorcery epics. It’s all too derivative. How could I possibly remove myself from the shadow of Tolkein or Hammett or any number of other literary giants. I want to move the world in an entirely new way. I want…coffee. I take my slightly sweetened black coffee from the man behind the counter, hand him some change and take a tentative taste. It’s not world shattering stuff, but it’ll do.  I thank the man in his little paper hat, though he is barely beyond a boy, and take my leave of the establishment. There’s a charming little bench across the quiet street. I walk over, pull a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of my shirt pocket. I shake one out, light it, inhale deeply. The smoke envelopes my lungs. The stimulants head straight for my brain. It tastes like death, but also like home. This is a disturbing thought, but I shake it off. I sit and I sip and I smoke. And I think.

I look out at the main drag of this sleepy little hamlet and I wonder how I got here. There was a time when I would never even have considered living outside the limits of a city. I grew up in cities, went to colleges in cities, worked in cities before my writing career took off, wrote in cities, lived in LA to be closer to Hollywood when every single book I wrote was being turned into a film. I think LA’s what did it, really. It’s such a different vibe than Philly, Boston, or Chicago. I didn’t like it there, which is an understatement. They still make movies out of my books; I’ve reached the point that I just don’t care anymore. I used to be on set, working with the screenwriter (when I didn’t actually write the screenplays), explaining motivations to actors. It burned me out. For whatever reason, I decided to try out suburban life when I left LA, and found a quiet little burg in Vermont. Nobody really knows who I am here, which is a nice change of pace. It can get boring, and on a day like today I do wish that I could simply walk to Downtown Crossing or the MFA or take in a Sox game without having to worry about driving three plus hours to get to Boston and back. The pros generally outweigh the cons though, and I’ve quite enjoyed my time here. The cigarette is burned to the filter, the coffee cup emptied. I have no excuses now, and should return to my writing room that is fast resembling a dungeon of Lovecraftian horrors.

The frustration that is inherent in writer’s block can drive even the strongest willed writer to the brink of sanity. You feel broken inside. You have the tools, the skills, you may even still have the confidence, but you don’t have the ideas. It’s like you’re a carpenter that is all set to start work on a masterpiece of a house; you’ve got all your tools, nails, wood glue, etc. and you’ve been carpenting for years and are among the best in your field. But you get to the work site and discover that all your wood had caught fire overnight and all you were left with was ash. Suddenly you’re stuck, and you’ve got these expectations and people counting on you and can’t do what you were born to do. It’s difficult to remain optimistic in such situations, not necessarily for the long term, because you know that shipment of wood will be delivered sooner or later, and you know the ideas will hit you eventually. But the interval is just hell.

I should listen to some music. I usually don’t like to listen to music when I’m writing; it has a tendency to inform the process too artificially, inserting moods that I can’t fully control. But there are times that drastic measures must be taken. I grab my iPod, plug it into my speakers. I scroll through the artists absentmindedly, pausing here and there, looking at albums but never really deciding on anything. This sense of discomfort and confusion has permeated every part of me. I need to do something, accomplish something. I just throw the MP3 player on shuffle, and Tom Waits’ raspy drone floats through the speakers, the minimalistic crashes and bangs of guitar, upright bass and percussion riddle the silence with bullet holes of dissonance. This isn’t exactly music to relax to, but it’s better than the crushing heaviness of an empty room, quiet and alone. “Hoist That Rag” continues to rumble along; I sit and listen, tapping fingers and toes somewhat along the beat of the drums. The song ends and the silence returns. I shut off the iPod. That really didn’t do a whole lot. I try to imagine what my mental process was like when I first came up with Songs of the Diamond or The Era of Heartache or any of my other books. But I’ve got nothing. I’m having difficulty remembering much of anything, process-related or otherwise. This one little chink in my armor shows up and everything goes to hell from the top down. It’s like someone grabbed the wrong Jenga block and it all tumbled down, neuroses flying everywhere, confidence slipping away into inky blackness.

I don’t know how long I proceeded to stare at the wall across from my monitor. My mind restless and blank, I took to examining the cracks in the plaster, black protrusions into a sea of off-white, spindling out in every direction with no discernable rhyme or reason. No patterns except what the eyes decide they want to see. A few splinters come together to look remarkably like a pair of eyes peering at me with disdain and disappointment. Great, even my wall is getting into the act and lost faith in me. More cracks, more shadows and pictures that aren’t there, more tricks of the mind. The passes and I just keep looking at this wall. I tell myself that I’m fascinated by the false images, but I’m really just looking for any excuse not to look at the blank screen, the monolithic flashing cursor. For a moment it sounds like it’s making noise every time it disappears and callously comes back into existence. A terrible banging sound deep in the canals of my ears. My own personal tell tale heart. I shake out the cobwebs; the sound disappears. This time around, the silence is a boon. My eyes flutter across the room until they rest on a picture frame on the nightstand next to the makeshift cot I put in the far corner of the writing room for use when I’m too exhausted to drag myself to the master bedroom up a flight of stairs. There used to be a picture in that frame. My thoughts turn to Victoria.

TO BE CONTINUED

This post was written to the tune of Tori Amos’ Boys for Pele.

Existential Angst

I’ve been reading a lot lately. I’ve always read, and especially since I picked up the comics hobby I read constantly. That’s somewhat necessary, since I get a twice monthly shipment of comics from Discount Comic Book Service that usually ranges from about 14 to 19 books, and those things have to be read because more of those suckers will be coming in fourteen days. But beyond the comics, I’ve been reading a lot of novels recently as well. I’m on a Neil Gaiman kick at the moment; I recently read all of his Sandman comic series, as well as Neverwhere and American Gods. I mentioned American Gods in “Storytelling and Religion” in passing, and I’m constantly amazed at the mastery that Gaiman can show with a wide variety of characters at his disposal. On Free Comic Book Day back in May I picked up The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, a really enjoyable story about two comic creators that works as a corollary to the hell that Siegel and Schuster went through after they created Superman. I’ve said before that it’s the type of book that has the potential to be turned into a really bad Oscar bait movie like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Cinderella Man, because it is very much just a book about people living their lives, and there’s no real unifying theme, plot or conflict, which has a tendency to work a lot better on the page than on the screen. The second book I grabbed on Free Comic Book Day was one that was getting a lot of press in the geek circles, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It’s a simple concept: take Jane Austen’s seminal work and spice it up some by having it take place in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The idea seems to work quite well in theory; Jane Austen is certainly the type of author that needs to be spiced up, especially in this day and age. I must say, however, that the book was a complete failure in my eyes. Granted, I did not finish it, but when the reason you can’t finish a book is because you just can’t bring yourself to keep reading after less than 100 pages, that is not a good sign. The problem with the book lies in its strict adherence to the source text. This is completely written in the style of Jane Austen, and as such the novelty of these characters being beset upon by “unmentionables” loses its luster quickly, and it’s just as slow and uninteresting as an actual Jane Austen book. I guess if you’re a fan of Austen and zombies, knock yourself out, but it wasn’t for me.

What I’m focusing on now is a slow and measured reading of Søren Kierkegaard’s Either/Or. I’m working through the first part at the moment, and even though I’ve read sections of it in the past for a 19^th Century Philosophy class, I’m practically reading it again for the first time. It’s somewhat slow going at the moment because the section in which I am currently embroiled, The Immediate Erotic Stages, is an explication of aesthetics through the lens of a careful analysis of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which I’ve never heard, nor do I know much about. So there are some particulars that I can’t quite follow, but in general it’s a very interesting read. What it does lead me to talk about, and this is something I said I would get to in “Memory,” is existentialism. The two forebearers of existentialism in the 19^th century happen to be two of my favorite philosophers, the aforementioned Kierkegaard, and the guy I just can’t stop mentioning, Friedrich Nietzsche. These men were not contemporaries; Kierkegaard wrote predominantly in the 1840’s and Nietzsche from 1873 to 1888. These were two philosophers that oddly enough had similar ideas from entirely different spheres of perspective. They overlap in many ways, especially when it comes to their opinions about music as one of the highest forms of aesthetic art, and while they may have shared opinions about the weaknesses of organized religion, but Kierkegaard was a deeply religious man and Nietzsche, well (and I know this will come as a shock…) wasn’t.

Existentialism as a movement grew out of the study of these two philosophers in the twentieth century. It has the stereotypical moniker of being the philosophy of the extremely depressed, disaffected and down in the dumps (okay, that last one was a little weak, but I had to keep the alliteration going). The main reason this stereotype exists is because the two most famous existential philosophers of the past sixty years were Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, neither of whom were particularly cheery. This side of existentialism seems to come more from Kierkegaard than Nietzsche, as Kierkegaard wrote an entire book on what is now come to be known as existential angst (The Concept of Dread), and most of Nietzsche’s negativity (of which there is not nearly as much as most assume) is more centered around pity and anger than angst or dread, which are entirely different places on the emotional spectrum. I do think that Nietzsche’s outlook is a lot closer to my personal beliefs and inclinations, and I wanted to spend the rest of this article talking about why this sense of negative existentialism is a bit weak in my eyes.

One of the contributing factors to this existential angst is the central belief that the philosophy is predicated on the existence of the individual. The concerns of the existential philosophy are not the world as such, but how that world is shaped by, interacts with, or relates to the individual. Since the individual is paramount, the world must necessarily be a subjective and relativistic one, because once absolutes of any kind come into play, you have created something that is above the individual, which is against the central thesis of existentialism. As such, free will is absolute, and the angst comes from the need to make decisions in a world that is predicated upon the self. This is the central thesis of The Concept of Dread. There is no escape, because the existentialist is freely and totally in control of himself, and thus has no outward release to relieve the pressure of simply living. This is also how you eventually reach the point of potential nihilism, which for the later existentialists is often rooted in the notion that we are but insignificant beings in a vast uncaring universe that has no legitimate support system with which to deal with such a perspective. As a small aside, one of the more humorous implications of this outlook was made by Douglas Adams in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The Total Perspective Vortex was designed to show the victim a scaled recreation of the entire universe, with the tiniest speck marked with a sign that says “You Are Here,” leading to the implicit ideal that nothing any of us do has any meaning within the scope of the cosmos at large. In the book, it was designed to be a torture device, and the only person to ever come out mentally unscathed was one Zaphod Beeblebrox, which wouldn’t surprise anyone who knows the character.

I think that this kind of macroscopic view of our place in the world is a little out of place considering the philosophical foundations of existentialism. The philosophy lies in the concrete importance of existence, which is of course where the term comes from in the first place, and existence can only be known through the lens of the self. The angst comes into play when the self is broken down in some fashion, whether that is due to some kind of denial or despair that either comes from the failure of the self or the failure of the universe to support the self. In both cases, the subject despairs because he has no support system to use in order to escape the failings of his life. Kierkegaard speaks extensively about this feeling when discussing the anguish of the poet in the Diapsalmata section of Either/Or. The poet attempts to express his feelings of pain and depression, but he is such a good poet that his audience is struck by the beauty of his phrasing and never actually reaches the point of empathy toward the subject, reestablishing that the poet is alone with his grief and can find no solace in the existence of others. It’s the famous line from Sartre’s No Exit. Hell is other people. All of this is fine, and technically accurate when seen from the existentialist’s point of view. The question, however, is whether this point of view is actually necessary within the scope of existentialism, and whether it is possible to keep this subjective sense of the self struggling against the uncaring world without having to immediately revert to despair and angst.

Nietzsche’s philosophy, as a foundation upon which existentialism is eventually built, seems to take the more hopeful perspective. There is definitely a sense of frustration in much of Nietzsche’s writing, but much of this is a product of his attempts to break down the paradigms of the well known and well accepted philosophies of history from Plato to Hegel, nearly all of which were heavily concerned with creating absolute truths that could be used to define the universe for one and all. The difference, however, with Nietzsche is that this outrage he constantly feels when railing against the universe (just read section 125 of The Gay Science, entitled “the madman”) very rarely permeates his actual philosophies. In many ways, Nietzsche’s protagonist (Thus Spoke Zarathustra’s titular character) is very much the poet described by Kierkegaard, with the marked difference that those emotions he tries and fails to explicate to the herd are generally those of an uplifting and self-actualizing nature, but are doomed to fall upon deaf ears because of the long and storied permeation of Judeo-Christianity into the psyche of western culture. Really, Zarathustra (as the paragon of Nietzsche’s entire belief system) is more akin to the Greek Cassandra, forced to constantly show the rabble the truth of the world while just as constantly failing to elicit change. This is where the existential angst would come into play, as it is the perfect setup for the subject to give in against the uncaring world and devolve and shrink back into the despair of the self. But to do so would completely discount the entire journey of Zarathustra and the self-actualization of the übermensch. By its very nature, the humanistic value system allows for a great amount of freedom. The self can achieve anything because he is bound by nothing. Nietzsche sees the despair and failures inherent in this system and chooses to not ignore them, but instead to use them as a stepping stone to a higher metaphysical existence. The übermensch is not even necessarily defined in any reasonable way; it is simply the goal of human beings.

It just seems silly to me that a philosophy so immersed in the self as the one true measure of life and the world can so easily fall into the trap of being affected by the pressures of the outside world. Really, external emotional factors shouldn’t even really have much of an effect on the self whatsoever. Oddly enough, this is the main tenet of stoicism, which isn’t really what any of us are going for here. External stimuli will exist, and they will impose their wills on the self in various ways. And it is certainly possible for the self to become caught up in these moments of stimulus for various reasons and with various outcomes both positive and negative, and it is perfectly natural for these things to happen, and they should be embraced as the products of an organic world in which almost anything could legitimately happen. However, to simply make the jump that the negativity will almost always win out in the way that the existential movement constantly falls back on, and that life will always (to borrow the iconic phrase from Hobbes) solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, seems to defeat the purpose of the self as the core of the belief system. You become more concerned about what acts upon the self than the self itself (wow. That’s quite a phrase…), and in so doing, you lose sight of what you based your entire belief system on in the first place. This, to me, is the failing of twentieth century existentialism.

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I’m cutting things off here because it’s late and I’m tired. Not sure if that was actually a fully conceived and executed idea. It certainly isn’t meant to be a true representation of all the facets of existentialism either. I’m not writing a thesis here.

This post was written to the tune of The Apex Theory’s Topsy-Turvy

Brown Vs. Faber II: The Growth of an MMA Fan

Mixed Martial Arts is an odd duck of the sporting world. It seems to be the case often that people who watch (or watched) pro wrestling have a tendency in this day and age to make the switch over to enjoying Mixed Martial Arts. One would assume that this is because the nature and kind of action found in MMA is similar to that of pro wrestling, in that you’re basically looking at amateur wrestling combined with stand-up striking. It’s obviously a hell of a lot more complicated than that, and is really one of the most intricate combat sports (and sports in general, really) on the planet. But it’s real, and it has the strong possibility of being really exciting, thanks to the way that these fights can end, taking anywhere from 8 seconds to 25 minutes (both of which were seen on the same show at World Extreme Cagefighting’s Faber vs. Brown II card Sunday night).

I have a tendency, when I begin to enjoy a new hobby, to learn every possible thing I could ever know about whatever it is in the shortest time possible. This happened when I got into baseball in the early 2000’s, and comics in 2006. And it’s starting to happen with MMA in 2009. A lot of the things you need to learn about MMA lie in the ground grapple game and the different types of guards, transitions, mounts and so on. Once you understand the differences between full guard, half guard, side control, north/south, full mount and so on, and what it means to pass guard or posture up, and what submissions can be attempted from what positions, you get a much better idea about the way these fights flow (or don’t flow in some painfully slow ways) on the ground. Oddly enough, what helped me the most in understanding how these grappling parts of the fight work was the X-Box 360 game UFC 2009 Undisputed, which has fantastic dynamic commentary during the matches from Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg who explain exactly what’s happening and what positions the fighters are going for. I’ve seen a couple of MMA cards now; I caught a recent Spike TV Fight Night, as well as UFC 91 on DVD and some WEC and Strikeforce shows. I’ll be ordering UFC 100, and I am quite excited about the prospect of seeing the Brock Lesnar Frank Mir world heavyweight title unification (re)match, as well as Georges St. Pierre’s next defense and the Dan Henderson Michael Bisping match.

What I really want to talk about is the hell of a night of fights that World Extreme Cagefighting put on Sunday night. WEC is the sister promotion of UFC that focuses on smaller weight classes. The main event was the big rematch between former featherweight champ Urijah Faber and the man that took the title from him, Mike Brown at 145 pounds. The show was on VS, and I’ve been watching a lot of VS recently because of the NHL playoffs, and they’ve been hyping this fight up like crazy as the greatest featherweight fight in the history of the sport. And you know what? There’s a good chance that they were right. The crowd was so insanely behind Faber, which isn’t really shocking considering that the show was in Sacramento and his nickname is “The California Kid.” Even better, the guy’s entrance music is “California Love,” which just made the entire place come unglued cheering their hometown hero trying to regain his belt. And then Mike Brown comes out to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man,” being booed out of the building and not having nearly the cockiness of his challenger, because like the song says, he’s a simple kind of man. And I’m not trying to say that Faber was overly cocky or a dickish person; it’s quite the opposite, really. It’s just when you compare the two entrances specifically and think of things in pro wrestling terms, Mike Brown would be a lot closer to the babyface and Faber closer to the heel.

And I haven’t even discussed the match itself, which was a five round war of attrition that had so many great moments and storylines that it beats just about anything pro wrestling has done in years. You’ve got the quicker man with the unique striking in Faber compared to the stronger and more traditional Brown, and Faber wins the first round with some great strikes and the crowd’s going crazy. And then the fight keeps going, and you start to notice that Faber is throwing these lunging right elbows instead of jabs and hooks, and he’s shaking his hand from time to time and not holding it up, and then during the third round you realize that he broke his hand in the first round on a straight right that hit Brown on the top of his head, and after the third round ends they show a replay of Faber walking to his corner after the first round, pointing to his right hand and making a small cutting gesture against his neck as if to say “my right hand’s gone, man.” And yet this man, broken hand and all, just keeps fighting all five rounds. Hell, he even hurt his left hand (though not nearly as severely) later on in the fight, to the point that in the fifth and final round, all he’s got left are kicks, right elbows, and open hand slaps with his left, and he’s still hanging in there and getting some nice shots in periodically. And he’s getting taken down but he’s valiantly trying to grab submissions that he can’t finish because his hand is broken and he can’t get his chokes locked in deep enough. And he comes the closest to getting a guillotine with about a minute thirty left in the final round and Brown drops to the ground and you think he’s managed to lock it in and the crowd’s going nuts, but then Brown slips out of it and you can tell that Faber’s just not going to get it done no matter how hard he tries.

Then the fight ends and Brown wins unanimously with two 49-46’s and one 48-47, and Brown puts over Faber as a warrior and Faber puts Brown over as the best. Faber adds that he couldn’t do much with two ruined hands, but he tried his darndest and he will be back and he will get another shot and make good on it and so on, and this whole time his cornermen are icing his gigantic swelled right hand, and he’s obviously in a ton of pain, but it doesn’t matter because the belt wasn’t around his waist. And that’s what’s beautiful about Mixed Martial Arts. It’s really at its core the fusion of boxing and pro wrestling, so you have this real sport where anything can happen at any time, and you’ve also got the personalities and the pre and post fight promos and characters of folks like Brock Lesnar and Kenny Florian and Urijah Faber. You see the pure fun and joy in the eyes of Jose Aldo after he popped Cub Swanson in the head with a flying double knee strike and knocked him out in eight seconds. This is a guy who’s doing a victory dance ten seconds after he shook hands with his opponent to start the match. And I mean that literally. The guy did a victory dance. And it was awesome. It’ll be interesting to see how I react to actually paying for a UFC event, and even though the UFC 100 card is stacked and should be a full night of good fights, there always remains the chance that unscripted real fighting can be really damned boring in quick fashion. Luckily, the entire card for WEC 41 was not boring at all, and I enjoyed every second of it.

This post was written to the tune of The Talking Heads’ Fear of Music

Memory

After finishing my last essay (well, and a few others; I finished this one after I wrote a couple other entries), I was at a loss for what to write next. I wanted to keep it going; I’m thoroughly enjoying writing these little philosophical flights of fancy, but I just couldn’t think of where to go next. Then, I decided to watch a few movies (once again, this was about three weeks to a month ago). I don’t think I necessarily did this purposefully looking for inspiration, but I just wanted to watch a few films with a philosophical bent. The first one on the docket was I Heart Huckabees, a wonderful little flick from David O Russell that represents a torrent of philosophical beliefs, from Spinoza’s views on what makes the world to existential nihilism and so on. I love that movie, and some day I’ll probably write about it, but right now, the second film I watched is much more apropos to what I plan to talk about. To me, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the best work Charlie Kaufmann has done to this point. It’s not just the fascinating script structure or the slow unveiling of what is actually going on. Really, it’s the relationship aspect of the movie, with the Joel and Clementine love affair creating a beautiful picture of how love and relationships actually work in the real world. My most recent essay talked a lot about emotional instinct and how important I consider it. I’m a romantic at heart, so movies like this hit me hard. But I’ve already talked about emotion. What really lit my fire about watching Eternal Sunshine was what it tells us about memory.

The central conceit of Eternal Sunshine is a company that can selectively erase memories, usually to remove all thoughts and feelings about a former lover. The procedure is done while the patient is asleep, and when he wakes up, he is none the wiser about what happened and who was erased. Years of your life could be gone in an instant. It’s a frightening concept, especially when Jim Carrey’s character realizes halfway through the night that he made a mistake and does not want to lose his memories of Kate Winslett (and who could blame him?). This movie seems to accomplish two things. The first is a sort of proof of Nietzsche’s concept of the Eternal Recurrence (yep, I’m just going to keep bringing up Nietzsche; I’ve spent far too much time and money on Nietzsche to not use my knowledge at hand). The second point is what I have a tendency to latch onto, which is the conceit that you are what you remember, and that memory has an incredibly strong effect on personal identity. The movie discounts this to some extent though, mostly through its support of eternal recurrence. I might get to that concept here (here’s a spoiler, folks: I didn’t); we’ll see how long it takes for me to talk about memory.

So much of what the mind does on a day to day basis is tied to memory. It’s the main “nonessential” function of the brain (I say nonessential because it does not have an effect on the subconscious upkeep of the body’s essential systems). Everything you actively do is based in at least some superficial way in memory. If you take as a premise that we as a people are the product of a life of perceiving sense data, and that our personalities are inextricably tied to our experiences, the only way this could be the case is through retention of these moments in time in some fashion. Personality, consciousness, and memory are all one in the same. This is a psychological and philosophical ideal that seems to grow out of the tabula rasa theory of human development. It follows that if our personalities are founded upon the memory of personal experiences, then when we first develop as infants, we would have to be as close to blank slates as possible, and those early experiences begin to hard wire us to become the people we are as adults. The memory centers of the brain, and the way our minds process this information allows us to function on a day to day basis. What is philosophically interesting about this is the fact that memory is by its very nature an imperfect construct. It is very simple to have false or forgotten memories, and with this concept having such a great deal to do with our personal identities, it raises an interesting questions about just what we base our entire experiences on.

There is no real sense of validation when it comes to memory. What has passed is past, and that simple tautology informs quite a lot about the constructs of the mind. We remember past experiences, past instances of sense data, but there is no way to truly confirm that the moments we remember (a tryst with a former lover, the act of watching a film, a particular sports game, etc.) are as we actually think they are (or, to whit, were). Some things can be independently and objectively verified and thus known in a purely abstract sense to be validated, but the individual moments, reactions or emotions felt while watching that hockey game that you know ended 3-2 in triple overtime because the box score will exist in perpetuity are suspect.

Experiences, perceptions, and sense data are by their very nature relativistic situations. Say person A was at that hockey game, and his friend, person B, was there as well, sitting in a different section of the arena. When they meet up after the game for a few drinks and conversation, they’re going to remember it differently simply based on having different vantage points. Perhaps a hooking penalty that person B thought was a terrible call wasn’t so bad in A’s eyes because the stick that hooked the player was obstructed from B’s view and not from A’s. Even the quality of each person’s eyesight and hearing is going to affect memories of the game. And when they talk to another friend (Person C) that watched the game on television at home, that person is going to have a third completely different memory of the game. All three of these folks saw Henrik Zetterberg score the game winner seven minutes into the third overtime (because the hypothetical game I’m talking about is a Wings playoff game, natch), but perhaps one of the two men who saw the game live was sitting in a section of the Joe that was infiltrated by Avs fans. The crowd reaction would be completely different than that of the person surrounded by Wings diehards, and more different still than the third person who had the benefit of play by play and color commentary, but the detriment of the lack of the exhilaration of the live crowd. Three people watching the same game having wildly different experiences and memories of the same outcome. It follows, then, that memory and perception are subjective concepts.

This does make logical sense, considering that memory shapes personality, and our personalities are markedly different from one another. It follows that if memory and perception were not subjective, personal identity would become homogenized. It could be said that subjectivism is necessary from the perspective that one of the great things about humanity and living in this world is the wide variety of personalities that mill around this crazy little thing we call Earth. As a quick aside, this is where I think negative existentialism gets things wrong. The fact that we exist as a sea of individuals on a tiny speck in a giant universal uncaring cosmos is not a source of despair but one of hope. But I can rail against the weaknesses of some forms of existentialism at another time. Subjective memory as a basis for personal identity is what allows us to enjoy the narrative musical stylings of Tom Waits, for example. The opening stanza of “Invitation to the Blues” [She’s up against the register/With an apron and a spatula/Yesterday’s deliveries and a ticket for the bachelors/She’s a moving violation/From her conch down to her shoes/But it’s just an invitation to the blues] is something entirely personal through the lyrical eye of Tom Waits. It may not have been based o a specific occurrence or memory (it’s often difficult to tell what’s real in the world of Mr. Waits), but it is in the voice and style of Tom Waits. And whoever listens to that piece of music is going to have a categorically different reaction to it based on his or her own memories and experiences. Without subjective memory, the lush tapestry of thoughts and feelings that a man like Tom Waits can create with his music would be the same drab gray lifeless hunk of cloth that everybody else created. An assembly line of uninteresting garbage. Who would want that?

What does subjective memory give us that shapes our world and personal identity more than any other aspect? Emotion. I know I’ve prattled on about emotion in the past, but this does at the very least confirm how important I consider emotion on a day to day basis. Emotion is heavily rooted in personal memory and perspective, and as such in personal identity. Emotions are an immediate reaction. If you’ve read my other entries, you’ll need no qualification of that statement. However, despite their nature as immediate and subconscious (you cannot actively force yourself to feel legitimately happy, sad, scared, etc.), they are still the product of memory. I am, however, making a distinction between complex emotion and sense data reactions. The feeling of pain when you touch a hot stove or the feeling of euphoria during sexual intercourse could be considered emotional due to pain and pleasure receptors being innately linked to such emotions as fear, anger, joy, etc. But this is something different because its basis is in chemical and biological reactions of the body and brain. You don’t feel pain in your hand when you touch the stove because you subconsciously and immediately remember that the last time you touched the stove it hurt. You feel pain because your hand was burned. But when you listen to your favorite song and hear that opening guitar riff, you are immediately transported in the mind’s eye to that first time you realized the majesty of the piece and how the music or lyrics remind you of a person, place, event, etc. in a positive way. It can even reach the point that you can’t even remember the origin of your emotional reaction, but you still have that innate feeling in there somewhere. It’s the difference between immediate physical attraction and love.

The flaws of memory as a concept makes us human. In the tradition of western civilization, something being described as human has a tendency to simple be a synonym for flawed. It makes sense then that a flawed foundation creates a flawed product. And, to tie this back to my article about religion and stories, this is not something that would even be a big deal were it not for the fact that the Judeo Christian tradition epitomizes perfection as the ultimate goal for human life. There is a big difference between the desire for perfection that exists in Christendom and the desire for actualization that was the goal of the Greeks and Nietzsche (yep, that pesky übermensch). I would contend that the flaws of humanity are exactly what makes us so fascinating as a species. We have the ability to create wonderful things. We have made great leaps in the quality of life. We have conquered nature and moved beyond biological evolutionary imperative. We have destroyed countless species, natural formations, climates. We are the collective kings of our domain. We have accomplished so much with this impressive flaw directly at the center of our entire being.

Memory drives everything. Our identities, knowledge, emotions, our sense of world continuity and spatial relations, all of these essential elements are the product of a biological and metaphysical concept that is not only fundamentally flawed, but also cannot be trusted in many ways. This internal conflict mirrors the classic dichotomous relationships that philosophy has endeavored to understand (good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, paper vs. plastic, Duke vs. UNC, etc.). It is all of us and none of us at the same time. We may want to play the role of Joel Barrish and hire a crazy mad (redundancy!) scientist to go through our brains and systematically destroy the memories that we choose not to want or cause us physical or emotional distress, but this would rob us of the very thing that makes us human. To do such a thing would be self-defeating and as such should not even be considered an option. You’re cutting out portions of your identity and destroying the self. I think this might be why I have such a strong reaction to the long middle section of Eternal Sunshine where Joel is fighting like mad trying to stop the process, not just because he does not want to forget Clementine, but because these moments are a part of his core being. He has become a different person because of his time spent with Clementine, and to go through with his process would halt progress. Memory is not perfect. It can cause just as many problems as it can fix or soothe. But it is what makes us who we are, and there is no reason to reject that.

POSTSCRIPT: There is a lot of John Locke in this essay, specifically An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. I haven’t read Locke’s essay in about four years, and I specifically did not read or reference it in the above work. I’m doing these little works as an exercise in writing down my philosophical ideas in as much of my own words as possible. If you want some more memory as personal identity goodness, read Locke’s Essay.

This post was written to the tune of The Beatles’ Abbey Road

Twins

I must say, I’m so very glad that I live in a world that contains Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. Some explanation, of course, is necessary here, as most people probably have no clue who these wonderful men are. When I first started reading comics as an ongoing concern a few scant years ago, one of the first non-mainstream books I read was Casanova, from Image Comics. I picked up the first hardcover partially due to heavy recommendations from Comic Geek Speak, and because I had begun reading Matt Fraction’s Marvel work and had heard that Casanova was where he really uncorked himself and let loose. That sentiment is certainly true. The fourteen issues of that series that have hit stands are a crazy and wonderful spy romp that manages upon reaching the fourteenth issue to completely blow everything you knew apart and bring it all back together in a way that is sobering and keenly emotional. Casanova #14 is, to this day, the best single comic I’ve ever read.

Gabriel Ba was the artist on the first seven issues of Casanova. His twin brother Fabio Moon took over for the second seven; they have a very similar art style, so the transition is quite seamless. The reason Fabio had to take over the reins is chiefly because Mr. Ba got a new gig for Dark Horse as the artist for The Umbrella Academy. The writer for the book was what garnered most of the attention it initially received, because Gerard Way happens to also be the lead singer of My Chemical Romance. This is not a band I can say I’ve ever liked. What I can say is that Gerard Way is a HELL of a comic writer, as The Umbrella Academy has been a very Casanova-esque experience for me. The final issue of the second mini-series, Dallas, arrived in my DCBS shipment on Tuesday, and it was the second comic I read (because I simply cannot deny an issue of War of Kings). Quite a finish to the first twelve issues, as even though they’re separate mini-series, there is no denying that Dallas was simply issues 7 to 12 of the overarching story.

Gabriel Ba’s art has been consistently amazing, and as much as the Fables reader in me loved the James Jean covers from Apocalypse Suite, I must say that Ba’s covers, in addition to his interiors, have been a revelation. Just look at that cover for issue six. The emotion that Ba manages to convey in Number 5 just from the look in his eyes. That mix of fear, determination, and fatalism. The silhouette of Kennedy in the background split by the white column running through the middle of the piece. It’s incredibly well drawn and constructed. The art style perfectly matches the feel of the book (just like it did with both himself and his brother in Casanova), and the writing is top notch. It’s very similar to Casanova #14, really, where you have a character trying to do everything to disrupt an event and thus alter the time-stream, which leads to the absolute despair when he or she (or he?) fails. Both issues feature an extended epilogue that just deals with these folks trying to live their lives knowing what they know and dealing with what they experience, and it can be quite heartbreaking.

I just love the fact that you have these twin comic creators that are so damned fresh and new and perfectly suited to their subject matter, and they end up working on books that seem to share a very specific kinship to each other. It’s the way the second arc of each book manages to sum up everything that came before it in such an affecting way. Really, the books are just as much twins as the creators, and while Casanova and The Umbrella Academy probably won’t see new issues any time soon (Ba and Moon are super busy being badass artists all over this great world, Fraction’s got a full plate of Marvel work, and Way has to record a new album with MCR), I know I can just revel in these 26 issues of beautifully written and drawn comic work. That feels good.

This post was written to the tune of Mt. Helium’s Faces.

Who the hell is Mt. Helium, you ask? Well, they’re the band that was formed out of the ashes of The Apex Theory, a really fun band that put out a really good album in the early 2000’s (Topsy-Turvy), lost their singer, and reformed as Mt. Helium. They’ve gotten a lot more proggy, and I dig it.

Contentment in the Form of a Film Score

Short entry today that was inspired by my ride home on the T after work on Monday. Usually when I’m taking the T home, I try to get on one of the old style trains, find a single seat and relax while listening to music on the ride from St. Paul Street to Chiswick Road. On Monday, I had gotten a nice seat to myself right at St. Paul’s and made the decision that I was going to get some reading done. I pulled The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (which I have since finished. It’s great) out of my messenger bag, and right as I was going to turn off my iPod (really don’t like reading and listening to music at the same time. I’ve found that lyrics get in the way of my enjoyment of a book), “The Last Man” came up on the shuffle. “The Last Man” is the opening song from Clint Mansell’s score to The Fountain. Now, I’m quite the fan of Darren Aronofsky. Loved Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Wrestler. But The Fountain holds a special place in my heart for being so damned emotional and personal in a way that his other movies aren’t. I think it’s his strongest work, and it’s right up there with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I Heart Huckabees (more on both of those films in a later entry) as one of my favorite dramas of the last ten years.

A large part of that love comes from Clint Mansell’s score, as he again called upon the Kronos Quartet after the grand success of his score for Requiem for a Dream (the central theme, entitled “Lux Aeterna,” has been used constantly in movie trailers because it’s just that damned good). It’s a gorgeous score that works incredibly well on its own just as an isolated piece of neo-classical music. Lush violin arpeggios, piano movements, and minimalistic drum tracks create a sort of slow rumble throughout the entire album that finally climaxes in “Death is the Road to Awe,” an eight minute piece that features a slow crescendo that explodes out into full splendor at the six minute mark. This is of course also the film climaxes as well, with its own explosion of color and light in a moment that I absolutely refuse to spoil in greater detail. One of the best things about the actual score that was released on CD is the way that it flows seamlessly within itself as a piece of music completely separate from the film for which it was created. There are many films that have great scores. But not all of them work well on their own. I think Requiem for a Dream is actually a really good example of a great score from a movie that does not really work on its own. “Lux Aeterna” and its derivatives are great songs on their own, and the rest of the work is fine enough, but it’s not cohesive. The pieces seem more random because they’re less unified in an overall theme and more suited to specific actions happening on screen. It’s one of the reasons why I think The Fountain is the better of the two scores.

There was something very serene about that train ride, as the subtle sounds of the Kronos Quartet wafted through my headphones and I read a rather enjoyable section of Kavalier and Clay about an upscale party the titular characters go to featuring Salvador Dali’s near death and many other surrealist moments. I’m really enjoying the book, which shouldn’t surprise anyone considering its ties to comics and its status as a sort of alternate version of the Jerry Siegel/Joe Shuster story. It’s got the sort of slow paced slice of life feel that has a tendency to work much better in books than movies (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I’m looking at you), and the combination of the book and the music and the fact that I had had a nice lunch with my father that afternoon just made me step back and think about how far I’ve come since the beginning of the new year. I got a job, decided to finally get moving about losing weight, and many other things have happened to really make 2009 a year to watch. It’s been good, and I think it will continue to be good.

This post was written to the tune of Clint Mansell and the Kronos Quartet’s The Fountain (natch)

Perception

In continuing my look at what shapes both my life and the world, I thought I would tackle one of the most fascinating (in my mind, at least) ambivalences of my personality. There seems to be a constant state of friction between a sort of scientific naturalism or rationalism and emotionally founded instictualism. They are warring ideologies in many ways, but they both profoundly affect the way I think and approach situations. It is possible for these two foundations of thinking to be reconciled in any meaningful way? What does this tell me about the way I think? Should I actually try to fundamentally change by outlook on life to avoid the dreaded hypocrite brand? Is it even possible to do that at this stage of my mental development? How many questions can I throw out here to make this introductory paragraph seem longer than it is? Well, that’s probably a sign I should get moving.

I was always a very strong, well rounded student throughout my entire educational career. There were rough sports at times, but these were due to personal situations more than academic incompetence. It’s usually the case that liberal arts majors like myself are much stronger at subjects like English and History or Social Studies, but for a long time, I was actually an incredible apt pupil in the math and science portions of my secondary school curriculum. It wasn’t until calculus reared its ugly head in my senior year of high school that I lost the passion for that sector of education. I certainly had trouble with calculus back that, and it was the first time I became really frustrated with education. I had already been writing as an ongoing concern at that point, and I had made the decision to pursue English and Creative Writing at university (I didn’t make the change to Philosophy until the second semester of my Freshman year at Boston University), but I did not have an aversion to science or math. Calculus created that aversion. I scraped and clawed my way through AP Calculus and AP Physics 1, 2 (called such because it covered two semesters of college level physics), hating it the entire time and barely sneaking away with low C grades. I somehow pulled 4’s on both the AP tests, and suddenly had 16 credits to my name (in addition to the eight credits I got from getting an easy five on the AP English test). When I came to Boston University, my math and science requirements were already complete. I couldn’t be happier, and I didn’t look back.

I spent the next seven semester at college immersed in a sea of German Idealism, Phenomenology, Aesthetics, Greek Morality, and so many other philosophical subjects completely worthy of being capitalized. I can probably count on one hand the number of classes I took that had actual in class non essay tests, and three of those were language courses. I had really stuck to my guns about my new hatred for math and science; the only time it really came up was my higher level logic course, which was a wonderful mix of algebra, grammar and philosophy. This period of my life solidified my beliefs in the importance of the sort of emotional and instinctual outlook on the world. The biggest factor in that development is easily my first exposure to reading Friedrich Nietzsche, specifically his first published book, The Birth of Tragedy, which I read for a Philosophy and the Arts class the second semester of my freshman year. Nietzsche has always strongly argued that life is ruled by the instinct, which is meted out through his preference in the Dionysian aspect of tragic theater, which was designed to produce this sort of adrenaline fueled nightmare of terror and ecstasy. Nietzsche also specifically contrasted the Dionysian tradition with that of the Apollonian, which was embodied by the paragon of rational thinking that was Socrates, whose method of questioning, analyzing an argument and searching for truth became the basis for all scientific explication once Aristotle got his hands on it. So right there, in his first published work, Nietzsche attacked the tradition of scientific rationalism. This is something he would continue to do throughout the rest of his writing career, and I was hooked.

While this was going on and I was opening my mind to new philosophical experiences, the rational side of me never went away. So much of what I think makes me who I am is my staunch atheism, and that belief is rooted in science. The natural world, I thought, is such a wonder that the idea of a prime mover that created it seems to rob it of its beauty. This is the kind of beauty that is meticulously meted out over millennia. And as much as I disapproved of calculus, the pull of mathematics and science remained. I consider myself somewhat of an expert logician. It’s part of the reason why I’m such a strong essayist and grammarian. I can understand the innate logical glue that holds together concepts, and it is not difficult for me to discover when two and two do not add up to four. And really, what is mathematics at its core but an organizational system for the logical relation between numbers. And mathematics is at the core of physics, which is in turn at the core of the natural world, a phenomenon unlike any other that I find endlessly fascinating. As such, as much as I love the thoughts and opinions of Nietzsche, I cannot divide myself from the logical order of the natural world. And as much as I am captivated by the endless beauty of this world in which was are so fortunate to live, I cannot divest myself from emotion and the power of instinct.

There is, of course, a link between the two divergent parts. All animals, with man included, are governed by an absolute and hard wired fight for survival. Food, shelter, sex, these three things allow us to continue living and carry on our progeny to a new generation. These are instinctual acts, but they also lie at the center of biology and evolution science. But at the same time, instinct is by its very nature beyond rationality. That was a good portion of Nietzsche’s original point. Instinctual actions can be rationalized or viewed as a rational decision in hindsight (for instance, the instinctual action of desiring food is inherently a rational decision, because it keeps you alive), but they are naturally not the product of rationality. You don’t rationally decide that it is in your best interest for your heart to continue beating, and then, predicated on that decision, will your heart to start or continue beating. It is instinctually controlled by the subconscious functions of the mind. There is no room for rationale in instinct because it is a split decision and there is no window of time to mull over the whos, whats, and wherefores of whatever you basically just did, because you’ve already done it by the time you thought about it.

The rational side of me began to return after I graduated from BU and returned to Pennsylvania. I started listening to podcasts as an ongoing concern, and in 2007 I discovered the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, a skeptical science show out of New England based around interviews and news subjects of the day. I listened to about 130 episodes over the course of about four months, and I really rather enjoy it. That show has gone a long way to remind me of love of science and the fonder of the natural world. Of course, science is unerringly clinical in its bent, and as such there is less room for the kind of overflowing of emotion that is often at the base of many of Nietzsche’s fundamental beliefs. The life of science has certain similarities to the philosophical sentiments of atheism and secular humanism. Most atheists and secular humanists think the way they do from a scientific outlook, in that most of the wonders of the world previously attributed to God have since been adequately explained by the sciences. Indeed, much of the instinctual side of life is also explained by the biological sciences, so there is a kind of overlap there.

What unites these two factions of belief is the sense of anti-spiritualism. Neither the instinctual nor the rational outlook on life require a higher power to understand the functions of the world. This is fundamental to both sides, because the influence of a higher power undermines each of them. I guess, the a certain extent, that the instinctual side of this is less incompatible and as such more susceptible to the belief in a godlike deity, because much of the emotional perspective on the world is unexplained, and the whole point of religion is to explain that which cannot be explained. At the same time, it’s another example of taking the onus away from the self. If you do something as an instinctual or emotional reaction, attributing that to God would take away any (and this is a somewhat clunky word in this case) credit away from the actions of the person. What is the point of instinct and emotion if they come from without.

I think the bottom line is a kind of selective use of both mental disciplines when they fit to the situation. Matters of emotion are covered by the instinct, while matters concerning elevated thought are the domain of the rational mind. It’s a bit of a cheat, and there’s a good chance that it simply doesn’t follow logically, but in a way, that’s sort of the point. The instinct does overcome the rational mind in times of great strife or joy or what have you. The choice, then, is made by deciding which side to embrace. Do you forsake the rational mind and live entirely in the moment, trusting only your perceptions and gut feelings? Or do you do anything in your power to eschew the pull of emotion and live in a sort of ascetic stoic existence predicated on learning and understanding the world of rational and scientific extent, relying entirely on a priori knowledge to shape your view of the world? Let me tell you something: I’ve read Immanuel Kant. Quite a lot of it, really, and that outlook is just boring as hell. When you basically disavow all sensation, which is necessary because sensation is by its very nature a posteriori knowledge beyond the realm of rational pursuit, you’re walking a very fine line.

The fully sense based anti-rationalist look at the world is also a bit incompatible with the way the world actually works. Both disciplines create a partial view of reality as it is. So it is obviously the case that the extremes have to fold into each other in some kind of hybrid view of the world, but what makes this tricky is the attempt to make the instinctual and rational play nice without creating direct contradictions or expressly defeating the purpose of either. To do so, it is needed to break down the intent of each discipline, and how they are designed to look at the world from a metaphysical perspective. With a better understanding of their metaphysical functions, it is more likely that synergy will present itself.

Two words can be used to describe the basic way in which these two conceits interact with the world: reaction and reflection. The instinct is the domain of reaction. The world is how you see it. Sense data is to be processed at the immediate moment it is encountered, and taken at face value. If you react to something emotionally at first glimpse, this is not only intended, but encouraged. Extreme rationalism can go so far in the other direction that sense data can no longer be trusted at all, potentially reaching a sort of Cartesian skepticism. It is not often the case that your average every day rational scientist ascribes to this theory, especially considering that the natural sciences extrapolate their theories and hypotheses from that self same sense data. So your average run of the mill rationalist will not discount sense data, but also will not take it on face value in the same fashion the empiricists do (here we are, about 2000 words into this essay, and that’s the first time I’ve actually referenced empiricism as such. Strange). The rationalists instead choose to reflect, predominantly in an abstract way, in an attempt to determine how these moments in time may or may not reinforce their pre-established world view. Immediate, snap decisions are not in the realm of the rational mind. So you have a discipline that is based around immediate reactions and a second discipline based around analyzing these moments after the fact. So really, it’s a situation where these two sides both look at the sense data in different ways at different times, and these approaches do not interfere with each other in a temporal sense. And this is where, with a bit of playful jiggering, we can make them at least superficially fall in line.

The basic conceit is to take the best of both worlds while eliminating the contradicting elements of each. It is a similar take to the super simplified version of the Hegelian Dialectic, which takes a concept (thesis), finds its counter argument (antithesis), and searches for similarities within the two to create a new concept (synthesis). The dialectic continues past that point until a satisfying end point is reached. In this case, we have only one iteration of the dialectic to complete, getting us to a satisfying conclusion and a model of perception. First, we establish the essential parts of the whole that are needed. From the empirical/instinctual/emotional side of things, the importance obviously lies in the immediacy of perception. This is the cornerstone of instinctual acts, and without it you cannot react instinctually. The cornerstone of scientific rationality is deductive reasoning. You take the sense data that you receive through perceptive events and figure out not only what it tells you about the world as such, but whether it can be trusts by seeing if it ascribes to what the world should be from a logical scientific sense. So far, we’re not really in the territory of a necessary contradiction between the two mediums beyond reason’s inherent skepticism of perception in general. The problem lies in reason’s discounting of emotion. It is a necessary evil for the rationalists, as emotion will create bias, and bias obscures one of the tenets of rationality, which is the withdrawn outlook of the disinterested third party.

What we need to do is justify take the disinterested nature out of scientific rationality. You cannot be impartial when dealing with emotional situations that directly affect you. And as someone who cannot give up on the emotions of life, I need that to change if I want to put these two disparate elements together in creating a model of perception. From my angle, what works the best is to use sense data as an immediate foundation in the day to day shaping of the outside world. Whatever happens needs to be dealt with in an at least partially immediate fashion. But these moments should not just be perceived and then pushed off to the side. They would and should be processed and reflected upon at a later date to see what these situations mean and how they shape both the self from a personality sense and the world from a natural science sense. There is even a psychological component to this reasoning that exists beyond the realm of sense perception that creates more value after the fact for these emotional situations. Despite the fact that this model of perception does not incorporate the full breadth of both the rational and the empirical in its union, this reinforces the point and purpose and of the Hegelian Dialectic, in that it is designed to create a strengthened unity that more accurately informs the world in a metaphysical sense. And I believe, in my own way, that I have done that.

This post was predominantly written to the tune of Mastodon’s Crack the Skye

Storytelling and Religion

I’ve been working on this one for the past couple days. Decided to go overboard on my return to this blog with a 1,600 word monster of a stream of consciousness treatise about religion, mythology, and why I am the man I am today.

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I’ve never been a religious man. I am probably one of the few people (this this country, at least) who can make the claim that I was born atheist. There was no moment of great enlightenment, no crisis of faith or fall from grace. I simply never believe in a higher power as far back into my childhood as I can remember. Sure, memory is a tricky thing, and I might be looking back with rose colored glasses, but the fact remains. What I find intriguing, though, is how often I find myself captivated with certain polytheistic cultures. The ancient Greeks are probably the best example of this; granted, this is the kind of thing that runs with the territory when you devote your life to the study of western philosophy, but it extends beyond that. I love the art and mysticism of ancient South American tribal cultures (your Mayan, Aztec and Incan civilizations). The Egyptian hierarchy pulls at me. Norse mythology is just plain fun. It’s no wonder that my two favorite comic series at the moment are Thor and The Incredible Hercules. Or that books like American Gods or the Vertigo comic series Fables seem to be right in my wheelhouse. I often try to figure out just why I have such an aversion to monotheism, and yet at the same time cannot deny the pull these polytheistic cultures have on my imagination.

I used to say that if I ever got a tattoo, I would put three ancient Greek words on my back, two on my shoulders and one on my neck that would form a sort of wide, fat triangle. Those words were going to be αρέτε, or excellence, τίμε, or honor, and λογος, or knowledge. These three terms were at the core of ancient Greek culture and philosophy. They were very much a meritocracy, where people of great wisdom and power rose to prominence. This was contrasted in a way by their theological underpinnings; the Greek pantheon was a group of petty, imperialistic, adulterous and generally awful gods. I find it fascinating that a culture predicated on such flawed deities could produce such groundbreaking developments in the entirety of western civilization from science to art to philosophy to warfare. These people grew up idolizing deities that did not live up to the expectations to which they eventually rose. And yet, throughout that whole time, everything was done in supplication to these gods, which logically does not seem to follow. But I think I have an idea whi I personally find it so captivating.

When you consider yourself to be a writer, that comes with expectations. .Unless you have always just focused on copy writing or critiques or essays, you don’t become a writer unless you have some sense of storytelling foundation. Some people are born storytellers. Neil Gaiman is the type of person I would put in that column, and you can tell because of the wide range of literary output that he has produced all across the board, from comic work like The Sandman to the Douglas Adams biography Don’t Panic to his well established novels. Some are born to read stories. I always loved John Hurt for his voice and delivery when reading stories. Just watch an episode of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller or the opening sequence of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Stories capture the imagination, excite the senses and offer a vicarious escape from the drudgeries of day to day life. The fact that the ancient Greek pantheon had humanistic qualities and flaws makes them great characters in a story. Stories need conflict. I have personally held the opinion that the best conflict comes from within rather than without; the perfect protagonist persevering against a hateful, black hatted villain can only take you so far. You believe that there can be something more. You cast doubt into the reader’s mind about the hero only to make his triumph more satisfying. It’s storytelling 101. Much of this, of course, has been collapsed into the monotheistic Judeo-Christian tradition. Flawed characters abound in both the Testaments, but the flawed characters are all human. By its very nature, the God figure of a monotheistic religion must be perfect and infallible, because it is the cornerstone of all creation. You introduce a flaw in the creator, and that imperfection can be extrapolated out into all that He creates. So, of course, they have built in ways to explain why the world is not perfect, ranging from the fall of Adam to the sacrifices of Jesus and so on. But I think you lose something in translation when you do that, and the stories just don’t grasp me the way that these grand mythological tales seem to do.

So much about what makes a religion impressive and powerful is the way it captivates the imagination and moves the human mind to act in some fashion. Without that, all you’re really doing is going through the motions. It’s a kind of untenable faith that is prone to fracture, which is not something around which you want to build a value system. Someone who is basically half-heartedly going along is less likely to be resolute in his beliefs and values when the chips are down. I have many problems, most of them ideological, with religious faith in general. However, I would probably prefer to interact with someone who is resolute in his faith than someone who is going through the motions. There are limits, and once religious fanaticism comes into play, you’re walking a fine line and things can get much worse very quickly, but that is a topic for another time. What’s important (and I fully realize that this…whatever it is has been somewhat scattershot in its execution, and I hope, dear Reader, that it has enhanced your experience) is the execution of the story. And the Greeks were just better storytellers. You worshipped these gods because if you crossed them, they would absolutely ruin every possible facet of your life. The traffic plays would be the best example of this. Look at the folly of Agamemnon and Cassandra. See what happens when Oedipus and his family tempt fate and refuse prophecy. Prometheus, Tantalus, Sisyphus, the list goes on. If you can catch your audience in your thrall with the storytelling that is at the core of your faith/spiritualism/mysticism/religion/what have you, then you have done most of the necessary work on the road to absolute allegiance.

When I was growing up, I never had any interest in the stories of the Bible. I think a lot of that has to do with how straightforward these stories are, which has at its root the problem of the infallible deity as I mentioned before. But beyond that, so many of the stories of the Bible struck me as pedestrian. I was exposed to Greek mythology, Aesop’s Fables and Grimm’s Fairy Tales along with the stories of the Bible at a young age, and I saw no real difference between any of them. At their core, they are all allegorical morality tales. But the Judeo-Christian tradition is more grounded. The fantastical is portrayed in a different way. When you are a young boy and your imagination is firing off in all directions, it just makes sense that the more otherworldly parables would catch your attention. If you read the story of the Prodigal Son and the myth of Phaethon, how could the vision of this boy in way over his head barely hanging on while this chariot pulled by flaming horses burns the sky itself not be the one that burns (yes, that was on purpose) indelibly in the mind? But society and culture makes it readily apparent from go that these myths and fables are fairy tales are just stories and aren’t real or significant beyond their entertainment value. I content that there is a strong chance that if I lived in a world where the Greek myths were not myths but instead the basis of a legitimate religion, there would have been a very strong possibility that I would have bought into it as more than just a story. The Greeks never saw the gods or Minotaurs or any of the other wild creatures, but I you can catch the mind you can catch the heart, and visa versa.

Stories shape our world in such a significant way; it’s a shame that the stories so many of us are raised on just don’t cut it as stories. They’re fine on their own, I guess, and they serve a purpose, but when you compare to the long traditions of epic poetry, tragic plays and the fable tradition, they just don’t stack up. It makes you wonder what the future holds. I mean, sure, the Judeo-Christian model has held for thousands of years, and gets stronger generationally due to the power of tradition, and how you can pass something down to your children at an early age and indelibly hold them to those beliefs. It’s certainly possible that this will be the dominant religious model in the western world for the rest of all time. But what if it doesn’t? What if something else comes along, be it a new religion or some kind of event that leads to the worldwide spread of either atheism or agnosticism. Would the stories of Adam and Eve or the Flood or Sodom and Gomorrah just become the mythology of a new age? It seems like it would follow if some global change were to occur. Hopefully these new myths would not replace the old ones; I would hate to see the grand Greek tradition die on the vine replaced by an inferior series of tales. Not that I would actually see it, of course. There is no way anything like this could ever happen in my lifetime. Still, it’s fun to think about.

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Not sure if there was much of a point to that, but I needed to get something out of my system and into a blog, so there you have it.

This post was (mostly) written to the tune of Ween’s At The Cat’s Cradle 1992, with some final flair from King Crimson’s Red