2007

Hmmm...no posts here for a long time, I doubt anybody missed them.

Plenty of fine reasons but none worth mentioning as in the final analysis if something is sufficiently important we do it.

Will 2007 be different? Probably not, although photoblogging is a thought. I have been active with photography over most pursuits. I continue to read and enjoy poetry but have given up my zine due to the lack of quality submissions. Probably my fault as I never really gave it enough attention and failed to send out newsletters and publicize it in other ways.

I also tired of poetry forums during last year. The level of discussion tends not to be high and for most posted questions about dead poets work a quick visit to google suffices. For commentary on poems written by forum contributors, it seems that there isn't that much middle ground. Forums either thrive on vapid praise or suffer a form of masochism that permits all contributors to rewrite posted poems and to then be unhappy when the original poet chooses not to take the offered rewrite as a substantial improvement. There are probably many forums that foloow a happy medium, but they probably demand a level of commitment that doesn't interest me at the moment.

Despite the gloomy spirit exhibited above, I am beginning 2007 in better heart than for quite some years and am looking forward to making many more photographs - the year ended with a bunch of my photographs exhibited in Cleveland, which was quite a thrill.

Anyway, a recent self-portrait:

Camera Arts?!

Camera Arts?!

The James Frey saga continues almost unabated and he is vilified in some unusual publications. For example, the May/June issue of Camera Arts includes an article by Jim Hughes who spends several pages complaining about Frey, the so called writer and recovering addict. Frey’s addiction might be so called but I think, having sold so many books and still being just outside Amazon’s top 100 best sellers, there can be little doubt that he is a writer.

Mr. Hughes’ wrath with Frey is a warm up to his main target; the “third rate hucksters that can call themselves artists and go unchallenged. Remember, this is the era of look-at-me websites, listen-to-what-I-have-to-say blogs, and anyone-can-be-creative podcasts. Call it the democratic impulse gone mad.”

Apparently, the term artist is to be reserved for those that are so adjudged by Mr. Hughes and his ilk. It is going to be a disappointing time for them. Creativity is an industry in America, but why not? Nobody has to read the blogs, view the websites or listen to the podcasts. As an example, it isn’t necessary to go very far on flickr.com to understand just how many great photographers there are out there both amateur and professional. The fact that it is easy to find and admire their work is one of the amazing benefits of the internet.

The final vitriol is saved for image manipulation and Hughes provides a lengthy explanation of an image of his that accompanies the article. His is a straight shot but “Looking at a print now, I realize that some Joe Schmoe with an image manipulation program…” and you can guess where that heads. I suggest Mr. Hughes goes back to look at some of the giants of his art. Does he really believe that what Ansel Adams printed was what he saw through the viewfinder? Of course not, but that sort of manipulation apparently is fine. Photography has been full of manipulation from its very early days, consider how a couple of girls hoodwinked the great Conan Doyle with their photographs of fairies at the end of their garden.

The inference, of course, is that anything manipulated is not art. That’s just facile. The image should be judged for what it is. Sure, if it is for news then it should not be manipulated to include things that were not there at the time of the shot. If it is for art, then anything goes and if Mr. Hughes has a problem with that, too bad because digital art and image manipulation is here to stay. Might as well get with the program, Jim.

Hitchens

Can I be alone in my dislike of Christopher Hitchens, the ubiquitous polemicist, critic, columnist and self promoter that is to be found in so many magazines? Writing on subjects from blow jobs (blow jobs?)  in the latest issue of Vanity Fair to criticism of Updike’s latest novel to the politics of the Iraq war, he always manages to give an impression of overarching smugness. I am sure it is part of the trade to have great belief in what one writes, but most columnists seem to manage that without always giving the impression that they could have done so much better than the people of whom they write.

I picked up the July/August Atlantic Monthly with some glee noting that Hitchens wasn’t listed among the contributors but he wasn’t entirely absent  and managed to slip in a response to a letter writer that had the temerity to disagree with something the great man had written. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit and Hitchens the lowest form of writer that employs it.

What is really sad is that there are others that aspire to the same level of crassness. Sandra Tsing Loh comes to mind. Her polemic criticism of a book attracted a number of disagreeing responses and her response was, similar to Hitchens, full of sarcasm and ill-temper. One of the correspondents pointed out that Loh had been asked to contribute to the book and had declined, apparently, only due to the fact that the pay was not going to be enough. Honesty should have compelled her to reveal this fact in her review. She reaches for further heights in more reviews in the magazine. Sad that such a fine journal considers such writing to be attractive.

May 13th

May 13th

I have finished reading the Jane Fonda book, My Life So Far; unquestionably she has had an eventful life and while I suspect the book is more than a little self serving, I mostly enjoyed it. I can understand, though, why many wouldn’t buy it on the principle that she was Hanoi Jane. I think she was more than a little naïve in that episode, but then I detect other signs of naïveté in the book.

Other than that, I have been reading magazines this week: Vanity Fair, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly as well as a crop of others. The letters pages in these magazines interest me. How are letters selected? There seems to be a preponderance of professors in the pages of correspondence, are they selected according to the perceived importance of the correspondent, and are some, perhaps, selected as they give the author of the original article the opportunity for a smart rejoinder and demonstrate his or her superior intellect?

I probably enjoy the works of Percy Shelley as much as anyone, but his “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” statement has caused poets to overrate their political influence ever since. I say this as a letter in the pages of Vanity Fair used the comment as justification for Sam Hamill and other poets refusing to take place in an event that Laura Bush was putting together. The difference it has made to opinion in this country? Squat. Who knows, had Adrienne Rich attended the luncheon with Laura Bush, she may have been able to say something that stayed with her. Her open letter of refusal achieved nothing.

Byron’s direct engagement, albeit short, at the end of his life with the Greek cause had a more lasting influence than Shelley’s poem of social revolution, Ode to the West Wind. I applaud Hamill’s views, but Michael Moore achieved far more for the same cause. Does this mean that Sam should stop trying, of course not, and he is probably more realistic about his influence than many of his more vocal supporters. I do think he would have been better served by attending the event and reading anti war poems and subsequently gathering the work for Poets Against the War than by not engaging directly.

Sunday April 30th

Sunday 4/30/06

While I am on the subject of Poets and Writers, I noticed a quote in it by Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry Magazine, that he thought the April translation issue was the best issue since he has been editor. It was a fine issue, but in National Poetry Month it was disappointing to me that he could not have celebrated the best in American poetry and saved the translation issue until later.

Translations have always been a thorny issue for me. On the one hand, we should see the best that writers in other languages are producing, but the downside is that a translated version is always going to lack something from the original.  The translator will often have to choose between the music and the meaning of the work. Personally, I think the music is the more important, but I understand others may not agree.

I was reading Mojo this morning, a British music magazine, and was pleased to see that number one in their  top 50 contemporary classic albums produced since the launch of the magazine 150 issues ago was Jeff Buckley’s Grace. Buckley father (Tim) and son are favorites of mine and it is so tragic that both died young.

I never did quite get round to uprooting the poor trees yesterday. Those that know me will understand. I’d have a doctorate in procrastination if only I could get round to writing the thesis. Today I am not really in the mood for yard work but who knows.

Saturday Again

Saturday Again

I like Poets & Writers and pick up most issues. Often it seems to have a crusade going on and usually, as in the ever present discussion of the merits of MFA programs manages to stay editorially independent.

James Frey is the recurrent topic in the May/June issue and the subject of an article by Aaron Hamburger – Why Truth Matters in Memoirs. I find Hamburger to be one of those irritating writers that is hell bent on demonstrating their intellectual superiority. For example: “As every viewer of the classic Japanese film Rashomon knows all too well…”, now how many readers of this magazine is that likely to be Aaron? Or: “Wasn’t it Samuel Beckett who proved there’s no such thing as truth?”

So, I start off disliking the man and his article. An article in the same issue  profiling Wole Soyinka quotes from a 1998 interview that Soyinka gave where he said of his dislike of autobiographies: “ they are mostly lies”. I think any reader of political memoirs would be likely to agree with that, they are almost without exception heavily spun and entirely self-serving. But back to Frey, he exaggerated some aspects of his life and invented others and called it memoir. To what extent are we damaged by that? Has he defrauded us? The FBI doesn’t seem to be taking an interest in the case. Has he attempted to alter important historical facts? Not at all, he was a nobody and we, the public, had never heard of him in any other way. He made up a criminal career, which is not quite like inventing acts of heroism in Vietnam, Iraq or any other war zone.

Hamburger brings up a fabricated memoir of the Holocaust and in this case I agree with him. The issue is too important to be trivialized through a fictionalized account and such a book can only serve those attempting to deny the Holocaust. That, finally, for me is the real argument. Frey’s deception does us no damage but by accepting it, we create a shifting line where one has not existed before. What is the point at which it matters that a memoir has been invented, at least in part? I don’t know and for that reason agree with Hamburger that it should be clear to the reader what is fiction and what is not.

This issue of Poets & Writers has come too late for the Kaavya Viswathanathan plagiarism controversy, but I look forward to the commentary in due course. The background is extraordinary; a 17 year old girl who had never written a book was awarded a $500,000 advance for a book concept is assisted by a ‘book packager’ that, apparently, received joint award of the copyright and half of the advance. This book packager assisted in the conceptualization of the novel. I wonder what that means?

Oh well, back to some yard work. Several young trees did not survive the winter. despite its mildness, so off I go to haul them out. I listened briefly to Car Talk on NPR this morning where, bravely, they were discussion butt sweat. I’ll know all about butt sweat in an hour or so!

Sunday

I managed to finish Untold Stories by Alan Bennett. I am quite proud of the achievement as the book runs around 650 pages and it has taken me less than a week, during which time I have also been reading the endless stream of magazines I seem compelled to purchase.

I was quite surprised at the prominence that the book received at my local Border’s (even though, inexplicably, it appeared in New Fiction) as it is a very English book with very English memories and complaints.

Rather to my glee, Bennett, in the pages of diary extracts, comes over as quite a grumpy man. It’s good to know we share some attributes. I doubt I’d put up with a woman living rough in a van in my driveway for fifteen years as he did. Even after reading the book, I’m not quite sure why he allowed her to do so. I see that he would probably always prefer to avoid conflict, but still it can’t have made him too popular with his neighbors, though I suppose they forgot about it after a year or two and it just became part of everyday life, rather as the trains that pass slowly nearby have become part of mine.

I enjoyed the book and found myself made a little homesick by his descriptions of visits to ancient churches to look at the windows and the memorials. I was a church collector in that way myself for a while though, shockingly, during my last trip to England I passed near to Romney Marsh without visiting St. Mary in the Marsh. When I lived nearby in Ashford, I would visit regularly during the summer and sit quietly in one of the old box family pews.

There are some pretty churches here in the US, but few that have the same sense of history within, and none that were in existence at the time of King Canute as was the Church of St. Clements in Old Romney.

But Bennett has distracted me from some domestic tasks over the past few days; notably, cutting the grass. I don’t mind too much as the dandelions, of which there truly is a golden host, are such a cheery yellow though I suspect that I will be battling them with some form of weed killer within a few weeks. It’s a battle I am destined to lose.

On the subject of the yard, I have a pair of crows nesting and while they are likely to be eyed suspiciously by my neighbor, I find them interesting to watch. Yesterday, for example, I watched them chase a squirrel away from the tree in which they are nesting. They harried it until it fled across the creek at which time their mission appeared to be accomplished. I was surprised to learn that a squirrel might, on rare occasions, eat bird eggs. I am a fact richer today thanks to my crow neighbors.