Fahrenheit 451, in the Age of Ebooks, May Have Been a Much Shorter Novel...

Sometime last week a number of Kindle users were surprised and a little vexed to find that several of their ebooks had been deleted from their devices, among them works by George Orwell (which I'm told is deeply ironic, although since I evidently missed that class in high school, I'm afraid I'm unable to confirm this). Amazon's explanation was that they had evidently been contracting a third party to upload books into ebook form, and this third party had managed to do so with a number of books without first obtaining copyright. Once the error was discovered, Amazon remotely deleted those books from the Kindles that had purchased them, and refunded those customers' money.

Now many people are up in arms though, and for good reason. The slippery issue of ownership had already been a topic of discussion and some debate with regards to the ebook, but now there is also a lot of talk going on about the future of book-baning. Across time and history, of course, the Press has been notoriously difficult to control due to how diverse and spread out it is. Imagine though, how different it might be if all it took to wipe a book off the face of the Earth was a corporate will, and a few complicated raps on the keyboard?

Amazon has already announced that in the future it will not 'recall' already-purchased materials, and so many people believe the current anxiety is both paranoid and ill-founded. Perhaps. Although I admit that I wouldn't mind hearing Amazon address some of these concerns directly. I haven't given up on ebooks yet as a worthwhile medium, but clearly there are still some valid issues that need to be addressed.

More Vampires...

There was a time, I think, when vampires' immortality was just a fictional convention-- an aspect of the vampire's figure, rather than its literary function. But as TV networks continue to churn out more and more vampire series', and as the commentary on this phenomena spirals ever-outward, I'm beginning to think there's something more to vampires'... persistence. Anne Rice's character, Louis, of the seminal Interview with the Vampire, now strikes me almost as a kind of meta-character-- a vampire-prophet: the way his presence transcends historical and cultural bounds, shifting in quality as the times themselves shift, while at the same time always reflecting some critical aspect of the society he preys upon. When we consider the ebb and flow of vampires in mass media, as well as how their presence there has developed, the similarity of these two visions are all but clear, and we begin to see just how undying they truly are.

This month's issue of Bookslut contains an article by Jessica Ferri re-examining the Twilight phenomena... yet again, but despite the fact that these commentaries are becoming as redundant as the genre itself, I find that I cannot fault her. Vampires are irresistible. They're sexy, mysterious, and at the same time, deeply iconographic-- a veritable wet dream for critics with a pulse (pun?). After all, it's interesting to look at how they've developed over time. How, in their considerable lifespan, vampires have gone from being the quintessential and morally dubious 'Other', to a virtual Everyman kind of figure; their struggle with bloodlust mirroring our own (supposed) struggle to maintain sexual purity. Such reflections are interesting the first, second, and even the third time we make them, but now, I'm afraid, they are done.

Everyone seems to have some disparaging and urgent thing to say about vampire literature, but frankly, its beginning to sound like the anxious chatter of addicts trying to talk their way out of an addiction. Enough already! (Although I'll admit in writing this, I too am perhaps implicit.)

One thing that does make Ferri's article a bit more interesting, however, than the typical pulp literature debasement, is the attention she pays to Twilight's all-too-human heroine, Bella, comparing her at length to the author's preferred Buffy (i.e. The Vampire Slayer):

Bella is your typical teenage girl, and Meyer wants to emphasize her ordinariness by making her one of the most boring, annoying obstinate heroines ever... Doesn't it say something about women's lib if the dice has rolled from Buffy, who slayed vamps without even breaking a nail, to Bella, who does nothing the entire book but whine to be deflowered by one?

Because it is funny and amusing, I do recommend checking out the full article. But mind you: just this last time. If I ever recommend another article concerning Twilight, or any other vampire-commentary, take it as a sign that I've been compromised and you should at that time cease to listen to anything I have to say. About anything.

Bibliophilia: Sounds like a sickness, doesn't it?

Evidently Borders has started its own online dating service guided by members' literary preferences. I would love to be able to say I'm surprised, but then I remember how many times I have stalked potential crushes' facebook profiles for their 'favorite books', and all of the sudden it all seems inevitable. I found out about the service from an article by David Barnett on the Guardian's BookBlog, and though my opinions are not nearly as cynical as his, I do imagine it would be a strange sensation to meet someone through, say, your shared love of Joyce-- like meeting your girlfriend through your mistress. You can check it for yourself:

'I don't know if Borders will actually be making recommendations for dates in the same way as they recommend books, but it would be priceless if members got regular email updates: "Did you enjoy, Mark, 34, of Swindon? Then you should try Gareth, 36, of Slough." Or: "After dating Sally of Birmingham, 86 per cent of customers go on to date Jayne of Devizes." '

Books and Technology

Here are a couple of articles I found through the Guardian newspaper's 'Books Blog':

The first is an article written by Michael Bywater about Amazon's Kindle (have one, by the way). In it he discusses some of the product's promising and not-so-promising features, from its capacity to make wireless purchases, to typographical issues, and the loss of reading texture the product seems to herald. He also has some interesting thoughts on what this could mean for the publishing industry, how the wireless aspect of the Kindle might be the thing that saves journalism, and how electronic and print media might actually come to support rather than exclude each other. Link to that article here. (p.s. check out some of the comments posted below the article bemoaning the American-esque 'wit' with which the it is written!)

The second article is about a new piece of technology presented at BEA, aptly named the Espresso. Basically this is a huge machine with a high-speed printer attached at one end, a high-speed color printer at the other, and what it does is print and bind books from electronic files in approximately four minutes a piece. At the end, the book slides out of a little chute at the bottom. This machine is part of a new movement called printing on-demand, which has some promising implications for how the publishing industry responds to supply and demand, and also product availability for the consumer. How many times have you been looking for a particular title or author that wasn't necessarily mainstream enough to make it into the local Barnes and Noble? This machine could easily put an end to all that, although I'm not sure what will happen to the venerable old pastime of browsing, which for me is a pretty important part of the book-buying experience. Anyway, the thing costs about $75,000 and most bookstores are too pinched by the recession to invest in that kind of technology at this point, particularly since there are some kinks that still need to be worked out anyway. Try paper jamming? Read more here.

It seems to me that a lot of the technology surfacing in those industries surrounding books has both promise and risk. True, there are a lot of subtle features of reading that are being threatened. A common analogy is the decline in Album art ever since iTunes basically swept away the CD. But I personally think a lot of those issues are ones that can be resolved as future generations of the products develop, and also by how the markets choose structure themselves. I mean, why can't eBooks make themselves available in different types? And why shouldn't Amazon offer discounts for books that have already been purchased in eBook form, and vice versa? Over all, I think the future for these technologies is promising, and could mean a great reduction in the stress placed by literature on the environment.

Some Words of Wisdom from the Master

Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? Have you reckon'd the earth much? Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through
the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen on all sides and filter them from your self.

-Walt Whitman

Story: Runner-up Romance

You would say that discipline was my defining characteristic, and you would be correct. In high school particularly, I didn’t even date because I was busy training to be a wrestling champion. Back then, wrestling and romance seemed like conflicting principles to me, and I simply did not have enough focus for both. There’s a whole lifetime to get laid, I reasoned, but only four years to be a champ.

My senior year though the best I managed was to be runner-up in the Show, and I wasn’t naïve enough to continue in college (throwing a second place fish into a bigger pond does not improve its chances). Instead, I contented myself with beating up the guys in my dorm—late at night, past curfew, because none of them could bear the thought of girls watching me wax the hallway with their asses. With their reputations thus protected, they actually found the whole thing immensely entertaining, and didn’t mind lavishing me with compliments so that I acquired a certain late-night fame, though I pretended not to care.

But just as often as those impromptu wrestling matches, talk of sex was ritual in those late hours when girls were exiled from our quarters; some sort of consolation, I suspected, to compensate either for the embarrassment of having their asses kicked, or for the strictures imposed by the school’s ‘honor code’ (which, coincidentally, forbade sex in the dormitories). In either case, I would sit very quietly while they exchanged tall tales, face still red and glossy, attempting to stay as long as I could with the exultant feeling of victory, and that quickening in my chest.

Eventually though, I too managed to find a girl who seemed impressed by my wrestling prowess—though she obviously could never be there to witness it first-hand—who on our second date asked me to show her a move on the floor of her bedroom. My eyes, I’m sure, gleamed at this, for we wrestlers are not unaware of our trade’s interdisciplinary virtues, and already I considered how later on I might relate the story, late at night, and so broaden the scope of my fame.

Which move should I show her though? I wondered.

A double grapevine? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I thought. Second date might be a little early to bust out a chest to chest pinning combination (not to mention one that involves a forcible spreading of legs). And besides, I would have hated to give the wrong impression. At that point, despite the regular late-night matches, I was actually quite out of practice, and so the moves may not have occurred to me as quickly as they would otherwise, but nevertheless, eventually I settled on what I was sure was the perfect one. If a pinning combination was premature, near fall, perhaps, were just the points I needed to score. (‘Near fall’ refers to points scored by exposing an opponent’s back to the mat at an angle of forty-five degrees or fewer. The amount of points awarded depends on the amount of time an opponent is held in a near-pinning position.)


“Alright, get down on your hands and knees,” I said.

Her eyebrows arched suggestively and the corners of her mouth flickered. She obeyed, bending down toward the thinly-carpeted concrete.

“This is called ‘referee’s position’,” I said, lumbering behind her. I placed my chest against her back and reached around with my right hand so that my fingers rested just above her navel, then paused for a moment. Without thinking, I hit the first motion hard, knocking her left arm out and pressing forward while my right extended into her thigh, stretching her instantly to her stomach.

“Hey!” she complained, surprised and obviously irritated.

I smiled sheepishly behind her head and apologized. “Habit,” I explained, and continued the demonstration. I was a little embarrassed by my over-zealousness, of course, but was assured it was still epic-romance-in-the-making. “This is called a spiral ride,” I explained. “See how the pressure flattens you out?”

“Uh… yeah.” Her laugh was half-sarcastic, but I could sense her good humor slowly resurfacing.

“But I don’t score any points by just flattening you out; what I’m counting on is you resisting…” I cued her hips to pressure back against mine. “See? The pressure on your shoulder forces you to a seated position…” But something about the motions caused a sudden flash inside my brain—or the firing of muscle memory perhaps—and no sooner had she reached her butt than I swung my body out from behind her and jerked her back toward the ground, causing her head to smack painfully against the floor.

“Ouch!” she yelled, and I was face to face with her now, instantly aware that it was not the romantic moment I had imagined, though I managed to console myself with the fact that I was at least still scoring near fall.

My "Work-in-Progress"

Many of you who know me also know that I've been slowly working my way through a novel (or what I hope will turn out to be one) for quite some time. Its working title is The Body and the Blood, though few have any idea what it is about. This is because whenever somebody asks me about it, a flood of its various premises overcomes me and I'm simply unable to determine which are pertinent to a description, and which are not. I've recently completed a first draft and am just beginning the second, so the whole thing is still very raw to me and tough to paraphrase, so in order to satisfy my interrogators (and also to organize my thoughts for the revision) I have come up with this little book jacket-esque description of the work and its themes. I've intentionally left out spoilers and excessive details, both for future readers and for myself--I would hate to take the fun out of writing it by getting stuck in various descriptions--though hopefully I've included at least enough detail to satisfy your curiosity. Enjoy, and you can look forward to the release probably a million years from now:


“For one cannot truly be counted human until [he] has fallen… Born innocence is a beautiful thing, but only innocence reclaimed fulfills God’s plan for us.”

So speaks Edward Hammond, the troubled narrator of The Body and the Blood. A defunct Catholic, much of Edward’s life has been dictated to him by different narratives: from the polemical texts of his faith, to various works of literature... His very name is derived from a character in one of his father’s novels! This first-person narrative, however, represents Edward's attempt to sort through and reclaim the broken fragments of his past. From a childhood in which both parents were in their own way absent, to life as the single father of a seven-year-old son, his account ultimately reveals a tender exploration of human depravity, and of the mysterious forces that bring people together. Interspersed with scenes from Eden and the tale of Original Sin, in these strained pages Edward makes his way ever backwards, with turns both comic and heart-rending, toward a hopeful salvation and release via the confessional power of narrative.

Poem: Official Scent

According to its bottle
Old Spice is the official scent of confidence,
and it’s true-- it is a fine smell.
Fine enough to skip showers now and then
and wax on another layer instead.
You don’t even have to remove your shirt
just watch in the mirror while an arm disappears
then you’re ready to go.
And what a grace it is
to be spared the body’s flaws;
to abide more fully
in the abstract world
of clothes and artful swagger.
So what if after a few days your armpit
looks like Shelob’s Lair?
It’s a small price to pay
to see yourself without contradiction;
the body’s truths subjectified.
Each week though the day arrives
when not even Old Spice
can mask your Unofficial scent,
and though you divert suspicion
by standing near people
just a little shabbier than yourself
at day’s end you are inevitably left standing naked again,
shadowless before the bathroom mirror,
waiting for the glass to fog
so that you’ll know the shower is warm.

Haiku

Cars passing in the street
light the curtain, but darken
the wall behind me.

Story: The Fist

I used to wonder what you clutched inside your fist, that famous appendage of yours, knuckles beaming like halogen bulbs. I remember it was large and tough, as if cut from a mountain side, and many were the foe leveled by its might. Many the loved one too, though most the time you’d only intended to caress.

I remember resting upon it at night; how I preferred that knotty lump to a pillow, though the sleep was often uneasy, as were the dreams. I used to imagine myself caught inside its grasp at night, our breaths like two sets of wings beating against the darkened wall.

But though your fist was magnificent for a time, soon it began to crumble. The skin on your knuckles split and every so often there was this faint trembling, like the shifting of plates inside the earth.

As word of your fury spread, the fights became fewer, and you made a weekly habit of cleaning the dust from between your fingers with cue tips and a bottle of Pledge. Our most intimate moment, I remember, was one morning in bed when you let me hold it in my lap and wipe the dust myself, though I admit I may have gone too far in kissing your fingertips. I still am not sorry.

The one part we could not maintain though was your nails, which, closed so tightly, could not be trimmed and cut into your palms, though I slept on it as always. And finally, I remember the day they bore so deep one must have tapped a nerve, and the shock caused your fist suddenly to fly open, whatever was kept there instantly dissolving the moment it met the sunlight, and then how I swiftly took hold.