Category: Writers

The Internet as a subset of the humanities

December 6th, 2011

By definition, the humanities are a set of academic disciplines dedicated to studying the human condition. They include the entire span of human creation – language, history, literature, art, technology, and everything else that fits under the guise of humanity. Law and its consequences. Anthropology. Self-reflection. It’s a broad scope.

In practicality, however, the humanities – as laid out by the National Endowment for the Humanities – make up the non-visual-art side of human thought. Literature and history, civics and government; the furtherance of society is built upon knowledge of the humanities. The mistakes of our forefathers and the insight of our peers, each mind creating a web of culture that guides us and keeps us interesting.

Nowhere, however, in the NEH’s definition is mention of technology and, more so, the culture of the Internet. Isn’t it time for that to change?

“Internet” and “Web” appear often, don’t get me wrong. They are used as a medium; often, they are simply nothing more than a method for distribution. Books are scanned and stored thanks to the Web, newsletters and meetings are set up over the Internet. Web culture is non-existant; instead, we see the culture of technology pushed to the side to make room for its tools, like buying an IKEA shelf for the allen wrench.

But there’s magic in that shelf. There’s more forward thinking civic dialogue, literature and true change being cultivated via the Internet than any traditional medium combined – a dialogue that consists not only of what we’re used to (Writing! Critique! Government!) but what we’re still discovering.

The web is more than a tool for cultural change – it is culture change ITSELF.

Full disclosure: I’m fortunate enough to serve on the South Dakota Humanities Council. What was once a council built on a history of retired professors and state authors has become younger, more in tune with technology and its tools. We’re slowly taking the next step, no longer content to rely only on the tools of technology, but with technology itself. The future holds discussions about what it means to be a South Dakotan today, in today’s terms, with today’s problems and today’s new ways of telling stories.

Your local humanities council is probably doing the same thing. But, unfortunately, those efforts often go unnoticed. Slashed budgets, public indifference and a multitude of distractions keep humanities councils – who are charged with protecting and celebrating the humanities in all of its forms – under the radar. So while we’re making changes, humanities boards are still struggling to move past the traditional author/scholar makeup and push into the future. Into considering web culture and content as important as novels about buffalo.

The representation of modern Internet culture is lacking. Where are you? Will you help?

If you read, you support the humanities. If you blog, you support the humanities. If you create web sites, or if you design beautiful products, or if you edit things, or if you take part in the consumption or creation of anything whatsoever on the Internet or via physical medium, you support the humanities. You support the process and history of technology, and you support the changing landscape of creative thought.

I, as a full-fledged member of an NEH-supported council board, thank you. And now, I challenge you to remember that the humanities are invaluable. They shape the fabric of our culture, and they deserve not just support, but complete appreciation and participation.

Regardless of the number of books you’ve written, or the number of Master’s dissertations you’ve given, or the number of historical texts you’ve memorized, the humanities are current. But it will take work to get them there – to stop looking to the past and begin pushing today’s agenda. Because the humanities aren’t just dusty books and the Venerable Bede.

The humanities are you.


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Issues Considered: Humanities, Literature, Writers

What I’ve Been Reading – Eating the Dinosaur

October 18th, 2010

I read Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs with apprehension because it deserved apprehension. It’s a book of over-thought pop culture arguments, the ones you might expect having with a roomful of probably drunk college friends, and that reason alone gives one pause – are these arguments worth diving into over an entire book?

What I’ve Read:

Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

But even more than that, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs was a guidebook for the geeky-but-not-quite legions of ironic thought: in essence, a rallying cry for those who found pleasure in debating the validity of Saved by the Bell’s influence simply because it was ironic to ever have considered Saved by the Bell influential at all.

Eating DinosaurUpon first read, I gave it two stars. A day later, I realized that I actually liked the book, and upgraded it to four.

I went into the book expecting to be annoyed by it. I was. And yet, I wasn’t. Because, let’s face it – those geeky-but-not-quite legions of ironic thought?

They’re my people. I’m probably one of them. *shudder*

Eating the Dinosaur, however, is different. It still follows the same patterns as Klosterman’s first essay collection, but it’s done in a way that’s both researched and filled with wisdom. These are no longer the essays of a college pop culture argument, but an almost Gladwell-ian look at the parts of pop culture that shape us.

Except that, unlike Malcolm Gladwell shaky attempts at the transitive property, Klosterman makes valid observations proven by common sense: The funniest shows are those without laugh tracks because we’re allowed to laugh for ourselves; voyeurism is natural and not at all creepy; football innovates specifically because it’s the most creative sport in the world.

It boils down to this: where Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs was a drunken romp through irrelevancy, Eating the Dinosaur is a buzzed discussion during after-work drinks.

Klosterman seems more grown up, is what I’m trying to get at. Thankfully. Because he’s better served that way.


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Issues Considered: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading, Writers, Writing

How not to present a panel on “Reading in the Digital Age.”

September 27th, 2010

Let’s take two men on opposing sides of an issue and throw them in front of an audience of casual spectators. Let’s give them what is somewhat of a hot-button issue, at least at this event. Let’s say the event is a book festival. Let’s say the issue is the increasing market share of e-readers and what it means to the landscape of literature, publishing and reading itself.

Let’s say one of these guys is Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, an organization that seeks through the e-book format to make accessible all of the world’s greatest works, including some that – with permission – are still in copyright. While we’re at it, let’s go ahead and say the other guy is Michael Dirda, a Fullbright Fellowship recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post book critic.

(Let’s also say Marilyn Johnson, author and library stalwart, is there, representing the middle ground but unable to get a word in edgewise.)

Now, let’s sit back and wait for an answer we’ll never get.

Because neither of these men is interested in bridging the gap between the promise and accessibility of ebooks and the tangible joy and art of physical binding. Neither of these men is interested in discussing how Project Gutenberg offers limitless preservation of what used to be the fragile and time-consuming practice of book collecting, and neither is interested in discussing how a mix of both physical and e-books helps people rediscover the joys of reading.

Instead, both men want a pissing match.

E-books are awful, a slap in the face of literature, and you water down the process of literary experience by missing out on the feel and texture of the book itself.

Physical books are pointless, archaic, space-hogging and inefficient, and everyone should read books electronically because you can fit 30,000 on one disc.

It’s one or the other. Love it or leave it. If you’re not with ‘em, you’re against ‘em.

Now, let’s vent. Because after seeing the previous example, live, in person, at the Sioux Falls Orpheum, in front of hundreds of interested people attending the South Dakota Festival of Books, I came away feeling disgusted and disappointed, frustrated that the promise of what could have been a great discussion turned out to be a symposium on Michael Hart’s inability to look behind his own project and Michael Dirda’s weak attempts at playing the same game.

The real issue is how we use e-books to further literature and adapt with the times, understanding that even ancient scrolls were pushed out by the more efficient book format, and that was thousands of years ago. Books will never go away – Dirda’s point on the art and tangible feeling that comes with reading a physical book is right on – but we can’t be naive in thinking it’s the only way to read.

Not when so many people are living without access to physical books. Not when you can provide a book in seconds to a willing audience. And especially not when there is already a drop in literacy rates and willingness to let books OF ALL TYPES fall by the wayside.

Traditional books and their texture? They mean nothing unless someone reads them.

30,000 books on a disc, for free? THEY ALSO MEAN NOTHING UNLESS SOMEONE READS THEM.

Let’s pretend that the two sides sat down and discussed the future of reading. The future of publishing. The future of literature and writing and everything that goes along with it, because, let’s face it, the future of reading is also the future of education and the future of our countries and the future of the world.

Let’s pretend the only agenda brought into this panel was one of collaboration and innovation.

Don’t I wish that was the case.


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Issues Considered: Annoyances, Books, Journalism, Literature, Sioux Falls, Writers, Writing

What I’ve Been Reading – The Red Pony

August 31st, 2010

I haven’t finished a work of fiction since March. I haven’t finished a work of fiction longer than a short story since last September.

What I’ve Read:

The Red Pony by John Steinbeck

That’s almost a year.

The Red PonyNow, before you take away my library card, hear me out. I HAVE been reading books. But I’ve also been starting a new job and learning to live with TWO kids and fixing a basement and discovering streaming Netflix and playing with new technology and doing all sort of other distracting things.

I’ve read books about basketball and about information architecture and about HTML5. I’ve read two collections of short stories from my McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern subscription. I’ve read about music and I’ve read about content strategy and I’ve read about writing itself.

But no real fiction. Nothing longer than a couple dozen pages.

The excuses, the excuses.

The truth is, I was exhausted with fiction. Though I missed it, I couldn’t get back into it. I forced the matter, I took it up with our library, and I wandered home wondering how I’d just checked out a John Steinbeck novella; primarily, wondering if I’d ever even open it, if I’d ever care again.

Of course I’d care. Because reading and literature are as much a part of my personality as try-too-hard sarcasm; my upbringing was framed by bookshelves, my preferences dictated by others’ words. And everything I loved about books peaked over two year’s worth of Steinbeck – I read The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and Tortilla Flat and Travels With Charley and fell in love with Salinas and Steinbeck and everything he stood for: great literature, themes and message that struck at the heart of human emotion.

The Red Pony, a novella from the early days of Steinbeck’s canon, fits under all three categories – great literature, great themes and a great message; a quick overview of the life cycle as viewed through the eyes of a young farm boy.

But, let’s be honest – I could gush about Steinbeck for hours, using as many fancy words as I could think of, filling my sentences with adjectives until they buckled under the strain. I won’t – you’re welcome – except to say The Red Pony, unlike Tortilla Flat and The Pearl (which are admittedly superior works) captures Steinbeck’s tendency toward realism and human suffering better than any of his other short works.

There is nothing complex about it. There’s a boy, a horse, and a family. There are two father figures who occupy the spectrum of understanding and tolerance. There’s the discovery of human fallacy, the reality of growing old, and the sacrifices of birth, all contributing to the slow coming of age of young Jody, a boy who really just wants a horse of his own.

Children do not come of age at once. Sure, Holden Caulfield immersed himself into the city and learned how to live as quickly as possible, but most children are exposed to life’s realities incrementally, coming to terms with death and life and the very existence of mortality not in one fell swoop, but through a series of occurrences. Sometimes they take a decade to unfold. Often, it’s even longer.

You could argue that, in this case, many of us are still struggling to come of age. We never really know if Jody reaches a solid point of understanding – like a short story, The Red Pony drops in and pulls out somewhere in the middle of the complete narrative – but we do know that he’s made progress, simply by the hints and symbols he leaves behind as we read.

That’s Steinbeck’s ultimate charm, I believe – this ability to tell a story through clues. Not through mystery, but through human nature; holding his cards to his chest, revealing only enough to win, throwing the rest away.

The Red Pony is fantastic. Coming from a Steinbeck fanatic, you probably shouldn’t expect anything less from me.

I guess that means I’m ready to start reading again.


Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading, Writers

Radio Shack sucks. But sometimes, so do the commenters.

December 18th, 2009

Listen. I get it. There are a lot of people who work for Radio Shack that don’t enjoy working for Radio Shack.

But why me?

It’s not like I set out to be a sounding board for the teeming, unsatisfied masses that Radio Shack seems to hire. It’s not like I opened up WordPress and began piling on in hopes I’d become the center of disgruntled employees, my site the sun to their swirling planets of retail woe.

But, that’s what happened. All because I said, “Radio Shack Sucks.”

I’m not sure many commenters have even read the posts. My situation was solved. It was remedied. I figured everything out and, despite my anger at the time and my fist shaking and yelling and threats of boycott, I still buy my cheap wire and television antennas at Radio Shack. I never called for an army of employees to rise up and slay the monster.

Which makes a bigger point. This was never about the employees. This was customer versus a system. Individual versus corporation. David, Goliath, etc.

Not anymore. Now, it’s a symposium of part-time commissioned hell.

Let’s be honest. It brings a lot of traffic. It’s my most popular post (which goes a long way in proving a search engine’s ability to separate good from bad). But that doesn’t mean I’m thrilled every time Keith from Store 543 in Pasadena or Jules from some suburb of Boston stops by to drop another paragraph of poorly worded angst, like Black Marks on Wood Pulp was the Domesday Book of shitty jobs.

In fact, when Keith or Jules stop by and leave yet another un-punctuated mess in the comments of a post, I realize that to a small subset of people, that post defines what my site is – and, therefore, what my writing style and personality are. All I can do is shake my head. Saddened that this is what I’ve brought upon the Web. After so long, I’m simply too tired to respond.

What’s more, I’m unwilling to delete the comments, because sometimes it’s one of the few real things that people leave behind.


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Issues Considered: Meta, Technology, Vilhauer, Writers

What I’ve Been Reading: The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy

November 17th, 2009

It might be a little hypocritical to slag on someone for being self-referential. As a blogger who writes primarily about his life and thoughts, most of my Internet persona is defined by self-reference.

Then again, I don’t purport to any other notion. You don’t come to Black Marks on Wood Pulp and expect non-personal writing.

The Book of BasketballHowever, when you read a book called The Book of Basketball, you expect it to be, for the most part, about basketball.

Let’s get this out of the way. I loved this book. As a basketball fan with a fleeting knowledge of history pre-1980s, it was a wonderful way to fill in the blanks. Was Wilt better than Russell? Was David Thompson as good as people say? Should I hate Karl Malone more than I already do? (The answers, respectively: no, yes, probably.)

I grew up watching Michael Jordan and Reggie Miller, so it’s good to have a reference point from which to compare. And if you’re looking for a more objective tome, there are probably better choices. However, if you’re looking for a down-to-earth synopsis of the NBA’s past 60 years, you can’t do much better.

The concept: Bill Simmons, who is sort of a pioneer when it comes to crafting Internet sports columns (in that he helped usher in the more relaxed, more opinionated and, ultimately, more enjoyable sports writing that we all take for granted today) uses his extreme fanhood to explain his take on the NBA, past and present.

A 96-player, pyramid based Hall of Fame that separates different classes of player based on accomplishments? Done. A listing of the top 10 teams of all time? Done. An incredibly insightful look at why Oscar Robertson’s numbers might be skewed, or a entire section devoted to what could have happened had certain moves not been made? Done. It’s like sitting down with a good friend – who also happens to be a huge NBA fan – and hashing out every great basketball argument ever made.

Yeah. It’s awesome. So let’s start picking it apart.

Seriously, Bill – your name is on the book – there’s no reason to keep reminding us that this is your opinion we’re taking on. I don’t care about who you know. I don’t need every argument to be unceremoniously finished with a reference to Teen Wolf, or a backhanded Shawshank Redemption quote.

He tackles race in an awkward way – he’s understanding, though at the same time strangely defensive and apologetic. He drops names whenever he can. He peppers his footnotes with the same kind of lame humor you’d expect to see in lesser blog comments on Deadspin. He makes no mistake that this is his book, and that we should expect more and more lame pop culture references and stories about his buddy House.

That being said, the self-referential nature only begins to grate around page 500. Did I mention the book is nearly 700 pages long? Surprisingly, it’s a fast read, though I can’t help but think it would be about 200 pages shorter if he took himself out of the story (an unfunny point he makes several times as you get closer to the end.)

See, there’s my problem. It’s easier to complain than it is to praise. Though the last three paragraphs sound like criticism, this shouldn’t frame my opinion of the book. They are minor blips on an ambitious project, one that doesn’t just present basketball history, but puts in context and in a way you can easily understand. This isn’t a book for stat hounds or nitpickers – this is a book for true fans, for those who long to have hour-long discussions about who was better: Bird of Magic.

(My answer: Bird. Bill’s surprising answer: Magic. Even as a Boston homer, Bill still couldn’t bring himself to be biased.)


Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Basketball, Books, Boston Celtics, Sports, What I've Been Reading, Writers, Writing

What I’ve Been Reading – McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31

October 22nd, 2009

Vikings, Monks, Philosophers, Whores: Old forms, unearthed.

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31The title page of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31, promises a lot. Don’t worry. It delivers. Offering a peek into the past, and serving as both a historical overview and a retelling through parody and mimicry, Issue 31 takes long lost literary styles – the Socratic Dialogue, the Whore Dialogue, the Pantoum, the Biji, etc. – and compiles both a classic example and a modern retelling.

What I’ve read:

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31 – Dave Eggers (editor)

It’s this pairing of old and new – and, in turn, the differences and similarities therein – that makes Issue 31 so wonderful. I wouldn’t know a Socratic dialogue from a Shakespeare play if it wasn’t for the example (in this case, THE example: Plato’s Republic). The red text in the margins shows historical references while being unobtrusive enough to ignore in cases of rapt attention.

That so many authors (the list includes McSweeney’s regulars like Douglas Coupland, Dan Liebert and Joel Brouwer, and newcomers like Okkervil River’s Will Sheff) can tackle so many lost texts – and do it in a way that’s both true to the form while still holding strong to the McSweeney’s style – is a testament to the writers the series brings in.

But let’s face it: that anyone could spend time mastering the art of these lost texts (Douglas Coupland’s biji of a videographer’s disastrous work trip shooting for Survivor is fantastic, as is David Thomson’s Socratic dialogue on the #1 movie of all time between Charlie Chaplin, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Susan Sontag and Ernest Hemingway) while I struggle to master the more banal acts of language is both inspiring and a little dispiriting.

Maybe that’s just it. Maybe I’m supposed to be writing in haiku, and I never realized it.


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Issues Considered: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading, Writers, Writing

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