See if I walk my talk or not

Taylor over at Noteworthy* asked if “The Art of the Letter in a Digital Age” is an antiquated concept. The question is one I’ve been turning over in my mind very often in light of my current project, The Leaving and the Left. What follows has no scientific basis, merely observations from what I’ve seen, read, experienced and heard.

From a young age, I wrote letters. My best friend lived almost 300 miles away. This was in the days before cellphones and email, before Facebook and Myspace. We wrote letters because it was inexpensive in comparison to long-distance phone charges and we had no other way to talk with one another.

Letters take time. One must remove one’s attention from others in one’s life, turn one’s attention away from the television, ignore the radio, and immerse oneself in the emotion trying to be expressed. For some, that is enough, but even that act, in its immersion into the moment, is not enough.

Some people are intentional enough to select specific papers and pens with which to express their thoughts. Some adorn their missives with doodles and scrawlings meant to elicit a specific emotion from the reader. Some anoint their letters with a scent meant to revive a memory, an event, a feeling, from the reader.

Others are not so thoughtful, merely putting word to paper. Even this act, however, is one of intense intimacy.

I love you with all my heart...

It was with a letter, a long one, that I mended a rift between my father and me that had only intensified as I aged. I moved to Montana from Ohio and wanted to connect with him, decided, Hell, we’re both adults, lets deal with this, and wrote him a letter. I expected no response. Instead, I received a handwritten letter from him answering many, though not all, of my questions; a heartfelt letter that I believe would not be possible in a digital age. One that has allowed us to become very good friends to this day.

Letters were once our only opportunity to communicate across the miles without great expense. In the United States, for the longest time, the United States Postal Service was the least expensive way to communicate. When I was growing up, long distance phone calls were a great expense, email hadn’t yet been made available to the masses, and cellular phones were a dream in someone’s head. Telegrams were efficient, but somewhat more expensive than letters. Faster? Sure, but speed came with a price.

Today, the former largest telegraph service in the US no longer performs this service. From their website, “Effective January 31, 2006, Western Union discontinued all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services.” By the 1990s, email was the choice of economically minded folks to communicate quickly across great distance.

Now, many young folks, from what I’ve read, choose Myspace over email. Social directories are visually based, and therefore more attractive to a generation that is constantly bombarded with stimulus from all angles. Other folks having disdain for Myspace, choose a more “mature” version of Myspace, Facebook. Both offer a way to message another member which the user has “become friends” with.

Besides these web-based solutions to communication, there are, of course, instant messaging solutions. IM was once proprietary. Users had to sign into their service of choice, be it Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, mac.com, Gtalk or IRC. Now, there are services that aggregate all of the above listed providers into one client, making communication much easier. Even Facebook and Myspace allow for “chatting”.

And that’s only the Internet. What about cellphones? (Or Skype?) I have a plan that allows me a ridiculous amount of minutes and I’m able to call anywhere in the United States for less than $70/month. I remember long distance bills when I was a kid greater than that, when we (my best friend and I) had decided that writing letters was not enough. And what of text messaging (SMS)? I can send a friend a 160 character message in a couple of seconds, saving me cost on my cellphone minutes, and communicate what needs to be communicated within a few minutes.

I’ve made the case that communication has become easier, more pervasive and less expensive, but is it still an experience? How many of you remember receiving actual mail? Not just bills and offers for an upgrade on your cable, but actual MAIL from a loved one? It definitely is an experience. A rare one as far as I can tell.

The question becomes: is communication denigrated? Implicit in the question is an understanding of the value of the unspoken message in the message. The feeling of a handwritten note is decidedly much different than an electronic communique of any kind, to be sure. Letters can be long and mellifluous, while most electronic communication is stunted and, to be kind, concise.

Telegrams are no longer available. Postage rates are rising. Electronic and cellular communication is becoming more widely available and inexpensive. I would argue that the art of letter writing is dying with my generation. (I was born in the 70s.) Or at lest the generation born in the 80s. It would be interesting for me to see a scientific study to determine how many under the age of 25 write letters regularly.

I hope this isn’t the case for a variety of reasons. Taylor asks, “Do you think if we stop writing letters that we will lose some thing [sic] – a way of connecting with one another that forces us to slow the mind and really think about what it is we are trying to say?”

I would answer YES to Taylor’s question.

View On Black

Friend of my friend S___, a blonde college girlfriend, a blowjob in a
public bathroom, the apology email,and the inspired response. The
spirit was with him….he was not the writer, he was taken over by the
True Presence. It is one of the most goddamn genius emails I have
read. Get through the girl’s email. It is worth it.

E________

—–Original Message—–
From: [mailto:*******
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 9:50 AM
To: ******
Subject: ugh

Brad,

It would be difficult for me to be any more miserable right now, I
feel like the worst person ever. First, let me start by saying that I
am truly truly sorry, and I hate myself for hurting you. Of all the
people in the whole entire world, you were honestly the last person
that I would ever want to wrong in any way. There is no excuse at all
for anything that happened, so I won't even try other than to say all
of us had WAY too much to drink, and I did a stupid thing. I can
handle you being pissed at me, I absolutely deserve it, I can even
handle the ugly words that were exchanged between us, what I can't
handle is thinking that you see me as a different person. It is weird,
I feel like I just went through a horrible break up or something. The
world looked funny yesterday, I couldn't crack a smile if you paid me,
there are songs I can't listen to, and I just ! feel beyond crushed. I
don't know if you meant everything you said to me, and I am hoping
that you didn't. I know that I was wrong on many levels, but I am also
hoping that this is something that we can deal with. I know it sounds
totally crazy and stupid, but you have come to play such a significant
role in my life, I can't imagine my days without you. It is totally
strange and weird to say that, and you could say that my behavior
didn't reflect that, and you would be correct. I hate feeling like you
hate me, and I hate feeling like all of your friends think I am a
terrible person, because I am not. I know there is nothing I can say
or do to take back what happened, but I just want you to know that
fighting with you was just about the worst thing I could have ever
imagined. It was right up there with one of the ugliest nights of my
life, and I would give anything in the world to rewind and fix it.

I am not sure if you will respond to this, part of me thinks that you
won't. If not today, then maybe some other time. Also, thanks for
getting my stuff together, although I think my sunglasses are still at
your house, if you could keep your eyes peeled for them that would be
great. I can't even focus or work today, I can't eat, I seriously feel
like it was an ugly break up, and I am hoping against hopes that it
was not that and you are not done with me. Please don't cut me off, I
really don't think I can handle that.

I am so sorry.

Elizabeth

Dear Elizabeth,

Thank you for your concern. I'll be sure to file it away under "L"
for "Long-winded diatribes from drunken whores I couldn't care less
about".

You did a stupid thing huh? No...doing long division and forgetting
to carry the one is "a stupid thing"; Mixing in a red sock with a load
of whites is "a stupid thing"; Blowing some guy in a bathroom for 45
minutes while I sit at the bar wondering if you're taking so long
because you ate too much bran that morning isn't as much a "Stupid
thing" as it is grounds for permanent removal from my social calendar.

To be honest, I'm not sure if it was more amusing that you went and
degraded yourself in a public toilet not once but twice in a 2 hour
span, or that you seemed to think that by saying "Well, I didn't Fuck
him" somehow gave you a clean slate.

So forgive me if I couldn't care less if the world "looked funny" to
you yesterday. Since your world revolves around blow dryers, golden
retrievers, Prada Bags and Jelly Beans, I'm sure it must have been
most unsettling to actually have to consider someone else's feelings
for 24 hours straight. The good news for you is that my friends don't
think you're a terrible person, they just think you're the average run
of the mill cum-guzzling blond who commands about as much respect as
your average child porn collector. I could be wrong but, it's pretty
hard to respect some B&T chick who comes out to spend the night at my
place even though she's seeing someone else in New jersey and winds up
tongue-bathing the taint of anyone who decides 30 minutes of droning
commentary on Colin Farrell's new haircut is worth putting up with for
a hand job in the men's room. The good thing about being a guy is that
when I eventually bump into the young lad who finger-blasted you on
top of a towel dispenser last saturday [sic], we’ll have a shot and laugh
our heads off about the time it happened.

By the way, for the amount of time you claim to spend in spin class
you really must be doing something wrong to sport the thunder thighs
you do. Watching you parade around my bedroom in a thong was a little
like watching sea lions mate. Thought you might like to know.

PS. I BCC’d about 100 people on this email.

Talk to you never,
Brad

Been slammed @ werk, and, though I did write a new story last night, I forgot to bring it to werk to post, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Meantime, though, fellow Montana blogger hosted the newest Rascal Fair, featuring fiction-writing bloggers from all over, but mainly from Montana from what I have seen. Head over and check it out.

Big shout out to Julia who recently arrived in all of her glory in Brooklyn, NY. Watch out NYC, a Knitting Revolution is about to begin.

And, just to let you know what you’re in for, some hate mail from The Best Page in the Universe

Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 17:12:28 -0700
From: Janine L.
To: maddox@xmission.com
Subject: Lonely Bitter Man

Hmm, after reading your articles about classifying nerds. I guess you fit
into one of those categories. Hmm, shall I say the lonely, bitter one
that sits at home all day and sulks about how much his life sucks?

Oh, and pretty sad that you go and diss little kids pictures. I guess
your parents didn’t beat you enough when you were a kid cause you sure
didn’t turn out fine.

He had this to say about blogs. For the most part, he’s right on,

He’s also an art critic, which is what the hate mail above references.

From the fine folks over @ Haiku Circus

Hope to get that story up before the week’s out.

My artist statement
Paint collage photography
order in chaos

But I don’t think that would fly. Plus, most folks who don’t know me would think I was being a pretentious asshole anyway, not understanding the inherent sarcasm of the haiku.

Anyway, here’s the proposal.

I possess a body of work consisting of over five hundred pieces spanning a variety of media including photography, both film and digital, painting in a variety of medium, collage, homemade paper, and a combination of all of these. All of the pieces have not been documented. Taken together, they explore a variety of themes including depression, the joy of living, relationships and political ideas.

An artist statement is, as is the body of work, a living, breathing thing. Writing about art, for me, even though I am a writer as well as an artist, is next to impossible, for art must be an experience, must make the viewer feel something, must touch the individual. Generally, my art exposes truth around me as I see it. I explore decay and rebirth, considering the subjects I choose to explore, as well as the mediums I use. The medium of collage exemplifies this, but even the photographs I take tend towards urban decay and the beauty inherent in that. A solid artist statement makes more sense for me after a show has been solidified, even if the show hasn’t yet been hung.

Creatively, I am constantly electrified by the opportunities for creation that surround me. I like to create at night, and tend towards short bursts of creativity lasting several days, and then collecting materials again in order to create anew.

My biggest weakness as an artist is my interest in so many different mediums that I am unable to develop one fully. Areas of interest include…

1. The potential of the digital darkroom
2. Sculpture – traditional and “found object’ sculpture
3. Polaroid
4. Medium format photography
5. Homemade cameras
6. Becoming better trained in the exploitation of color on the canvas, or paper as it may be
7. The potential to exploit the Internet in creating new art via HTML and Flash technologies
8. Sound collage
9. Multi-media experiences
10. Graphic Design

Taking that as an outline for my goals as an artist….

Short term goals:

1. Learn how to frame my own work
2. Learn how to market my work effectively
3. Expose my work in local galleries
4. Work more consistently
5. Continue challenging myself to learn more about the areas of interest outlined above

Long term goals:

1. Sell my work consistently
2. Produce enough work consistently to maintain the demand for my work
3. Donate work to charitable causes
4. Move beyond themes that I currently explore and branch out into more socio-political topics
5. Always remain fresh

Past Exhibitions

•1998 – Angel Falls Coffee Company, Akron, OH
•2003 – Art Missoula, Missoula, MT

The rain is falling lightly, around me, lightly falling. The smoke from my cigarette twirls in the mist. I look up and see a rainbow in the soft moonlight. I am tired. I climb into my car and press {POWER}. Noiselessly, the car purrs to life. I ease it from the now empty parking lot and onto the deserted highway.

“I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.” –James Joyce

Happy Bloomsday, all. Anyone who has read, or attempted to read Joyce’s Ulysses Has their story to tell. Here’s mine.

Back when I was a sophomore at Kent State University, I had the good fortune to study under Dr. Culleton, who is, though I didn’t know it at the time, a Joyce fanatic. She tricked me and the rest of our British Novelists class into falling in love with Joyce.

It began simply enough. The reading list included Conrad’s Nigger of the Narcissus, Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray and Joyce’s Ulysses. We blasted through most of the reading list and hunkered down with U, as it came to be called, for most of the semester.

Some of us were excited, others intimidated, still others stressed out that we wouldn’t “get” it. Dr. Culleton was so in love with Joyce, and she wanted so badly for others to see his brilliance that her patience guided her teaching of the book, never allowing us to become discouraged, always enthusiastic and finally overjoyed when we all “got” it. We got it so much, and loved Joyce so much that Dr. Culleton petitioned the Dean to allow her to teach a James Joyce seminar class the following semester, and we all attended.

Since that first time though, I’ve completed U five times. I even was paid by one of the other instructors at the university to teach him how to read it. Each time, the book is more interesting, more funny, less complex and more enjoyable.

Every year since at least 1954, fans of author James Joyce have celebrated Bloomsday on June 16– the date (in 1904) when Ulysses takes place.

For Joyce, the special significance of 16 June 1904 was that on that date he had his first date with 20 year old Nora Barnacle, a chambermaid he’d met on 10 June on Nassau street. She’d stood him up on the 14th (or 15th?) but he wrote her a note asking for another meeting, and by August (‘heavenly summer’) they were in love.

When the book was published, however, a huge scandal ensued, many claiming that the book was “obscene” or “pornographic”. It was contraband in the United States, and had to be shipped to America in a false book jacket.

But it is not pornographic or obscene. It is beautiful. Each chapter is written in a different style, culminating with Molly’s stream-of-consciousness soliloquy at the end. Plenty of guidebooks exist on how to read Ulysses, but the best piece of advice I can give to anyone is to not get too wrapped up in the details of it the first time though. Dr. Culleton compared reading Ulysses to seeing someone walking in a snowstorm. You see them out the window, you cannot get any details about them, but the important thing is that you see them.

Read it. Enjoy it. Laugh. And for those of you too lazy to read it, here’s a handy summary told in horrid animated gifs and brief one or two sentence summaries for each chapter.

Happy Bloomsday. Tip a pint for Bloom.

(Note: I was unable to find online the best edition of Ulysses. If you plan to buy it, pick up ULYSSES, The Corrected Text, edited by Hans Walter Gabler.

But, for the most part, we all merely tolerate our jobs. None of us are doing something for money that we love. And that breeds resentment. Resentment of our situations, and, on an inherent level, of ourselves. We resent that we are forced to work forty or more hours a week for someone else. We want to be creating art, or music, to be living and experiencing life instead of merely existing within it.

And we do create, but not nearly as prolifically as we would like. We drink to escape the disconnect we feel within ourselves. And I want to go one further, and say that the disconnect is much deeper, and that it is a disconnect from our own wild nature.

We are animals, we are wild beings. We are hardwired for wildness, even someone who has never left the city, even that person longs to be connected with nature in some fashion, because we are a part of nature. We were not meant to slave away for hours a day in a cubicle in front of a computer. We were meant to be outside, and because of that, our ancestors lived off the land, planted gardens from which they got their food, raised cattle from which they gained their sustenance. We are so disconnected from that, believing our food to come from Acme, or Safeway, or Albertsons, wrapped in Styrofoam and plastic. We put faux natural products into our bodies further removing us from our wild nature.

I am not romanticizing the lifestyle of people who came before us. I understand that working off the land is hard, but I believe that those folks had a better connection with the land, with nature, with themselves, and with their true wild nature.

I feel this everyday in my life, and am trying to pay attention to the occurrences of wildness in my daily experience. Even if it is something as simple as stopping on the way to work to smell the lilacs in bloom, something as simple as stopping for fifteen seconds to soak up the sunshine, warm on my face. Sometimes simply being aware of the wild nature we all have is a step closer to reconnecting with that wild nature.

I am much less articulate about this subject than is Becca.