A Month of MFA Mania

[Peter Jang]

So you thought we were dead. For a while, I did too. But here I find myself alive and kicking in this midwestern city that has grown on me if only a little. I was also just on the phone with Charlotte last week and she is doing well for herself back in Brooklyn. (She’s got a show coming up in less than a month now, for which details will be provided when the time comes.) I guess I’m lucky the way things turned out; Mike and I ended up collaborating on a couple projects that we’re planning to perform at MoCH in January back in NYC, and I’m busy working on my own projects (mostly writing-wise but also photography-wise).

I forget exactly where we left off. I think Mike and I were in talks about where we were planning on taking Generation Boredom, but this is currently in hiatus. (I’ve been getting monthly notices on viewership and I’m sad to say that we’ve hit a pretty steep drop off. This is probably my fault.) I will do what I can to update you all on things I read on n+1 and the Millions (which are really the only publications I bother reading right now while I plow away at more Carver and Saunders), but I’ll also spend some time just blogging about how the MFA is going.

I guess this sort of leads me to explain my situation. After a lot of hemming and hawing, I decided to enroll in the MFA program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The entire application and decision process was lengthy and labored, somewhere on par with light cerebral torture, but I’m glad that I went through it. I mean, whatever doubts I had about the program and possibly reapplying the following year have been completely dashed. SAIC has a very different structure to the way it’s MFA program is set up. It is non-Iowan, if you will, with an emphasis on studio practice. This simply means that there is more one-on-one interaction with grad advisors. This isn’t to say there aren’t any workshops (I’m currently enrolled in two) but it does mean an extra bit of independence when it comes to long-term goals. 

The non-traditional aspects of being in an art school extend into the way I’ve come to think about the practice of writing. There is certainly a focus on mainstream writing (in class, we’ve read everything from Gish Jen to Saunders to Cheever) and certain classes and professors choose syllabi that focus on the more traditional aspects of three-act writing. However, there are also classes that focus on really pushing the writers to try new things. Sometimes it feels like an infinite exercise in mimetic writing. Strangely though, it’s helped to sculpt my own voice - to identify my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. 

I know they say that writing can’t be taught and that you’ve either got the talent or you don’t. This might be true, which may always be a constant source of doubt for me, but I’ve come to realize that writing isn’t really an impulse activity in which the writer relishes in bursts of talent-driven insight. Sure there is some inspiration and contemplation involved, but really, at its core, writing is a practice. I always wondered why the formally structural prose of Tolstoy was often place in the same sphere as Joyce’s postmodern verve. Lately, it’s become clearer to me that this might be because both authors honed their own styles methodically, bringing out their own strengths to their greatest potentials. 

When I look back on this first month of MFA mania, I realize that, if anything, it’s made me a more prolific writer. There are, of course, the added benefits of being around other inspired writers, being in a quieter city like Chicago (that allows for more fluid thinking for me, at least), and having an entire block of time set away to practice and hone your craft. And I know that these two years will slip by even quicker than my undergrad years. But I can say, with confidence, that I’ve started off on the right foot. At the very least, the business of working everyday has staved off existential crises that I feel like I’d ordinarily would’ve encountered along the way. It helps to me around likeminded peers.

So, here’s to Chekhov and work that feeds the soul. I’ll keep you all posted. 

Fuck, I miss New York

[Peter Jang]

We apologize for the hiatus. We aren’t dead - just sorting out our lives. 

Friday Night Lights and Why It’s So F***ing Great To Be American

[Peter Jang]

What is it about Friday Night Lights that has me hurting for another season of Coach Taylor and his ragtag crew of Dillonites? By all standards, FNL is little more than a syndicated soap. Aired first by DirecTV, then by NBC, the show has apparently (and this is according to the WSJ blog) a very avid fan base. I can see why. But before I defeat all doubt as is what I aspire to do in each of these posts, I want to go into something these reputable blogs seem to overlook: TV Standards. Blah, I know, but there is something to learn from Peter Berg and the oft overlooked EP, Jason Katims — that is: flexibility.

Some will balk when I compare Friday Night Lights to HBO’s The Wire. They might say the quality is hardly comparable, the depths of social and cultural investigation aren’t of the same caliber. Others may point to the soapy use of dramatic music to the even more dramatic writing. Still, I say that the ambitions of the cast and crew of Friday Night Lights are not really that different from those sought by the writers, directors, and actors involved with The Wire. Critics are quick to praise David Simon for establishing a grittiness in The Wire that has since been unparalleled, but they seem to omit the fact that even though the producers made very daring writing and casting decisions from season to season, the plots quickly became predictable: Baltimore’s defeat over the underprivileged. In this sense, Friday Night Lights realizes a dramatic tension that is more exciting and, by virtue of it’s spontaneity, resembles a reality more relatable to the viewer.

Sure, FNL employs the sex appeal of Days of Our Lives with the ruggedly handsome Taylor Kitsch and the cute yet somehow sexy Minka Kelly but that doesn’t take away from the drama that was awarded a Humanitas Award for realistically portraying Middle America. That’s TV and something I doubt will ever change. Even though the more successful shows of HBO like The Sopranos seems to employ unpleasantly portly protagonists like James Gandolfini, for every Tony Soprano there seem to be about a hundred gumars gyrating naked on screen. Same is true for The Wire with Robert Chew (Prop Joe) cast against ex-models Michael K. Williams (Omar Little) and Idris Elba (Stringer Bell) yet no critics seem to hold that against those shows. 

I want to refrain from extending this post into a rant about why I place FNL right up in my personal Top 10 list. Just know that I have a valid list of reasons why this makes sense. Without falling into a ‘compare-and-contrast’ session, I want to point out some aspects about FNL that, to go back to my original question, leave me wanting more. After all, as much as I might complain about the relative obscurity with which FNL will forever be held back by, the show did last a surprising five seasons, surviving the writing strike and eventually airing on a major network.

First, there are the performances of all the actors. This, of course, is most apparent in the performances of Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler. There are lots of stories floating around the chemistry of these two but sometimes the stars align and a magic duo appears. When this happens on TV, it elevates a show from entertainment to art. (The Sopranos, Dexter, Californication, Twin Peaks, Mad Men, etc.) Kyle Chandler is magic as Coach Taylor, believable both as a Texas football coach and as a husband and father. For everything Chandler brings to the show, Britton matches and brings more. It’s strange to think that as much as the viewers are privy to watching kids like Aimee Teagarden, Zach Gilford, Jesse Plemons grow up through the show, Chandler and Britton are moving well into their late thirties — this being something I can’t imagine going through. 

Then, there is the football. God, the football is amazing. Critics of FNL like to cast aside the football as a premise for a show that is fundamentally about relationships. I won’t disagree but I’ll say that, as a premise, football is perfect. I know this puts the show in a strange genre of Sports Drama (now, being aired on the greater ESPN network) but I don’t necessarily know if that adds or detracts from how football functions in the show. Dillon may be the archetype for real Texas towns. It may not be. I don’t know; I’ve never been to Texas but that’s my point. Somehow football universalizes so much about the show. It is the perfect analogy, the perfect obsession of a town that struggles with the same things we all do: family, friends, finances, enemies, etc. but somehow football is purer. It is a higher calling, something that means more to the folks of Dillon than anything seems to mean to us, the people sitting at home on a friday night watching TV. 

This, folks, is America at its finest: Texas, televised. David Foster Wallace saw ideation in television; he saw homogenization, the adoration of an unattainable perfection. If any show were to stand against this sentiment, it would be Friday Night Lights. Peter Berg shows us a world where nothing is perfect, where most things mandate compromise, where priorities are often screwed loose, where football is more important than education. But Berg isn’t without hope; he may show us this world where nothing seems to ever come without a hitch but he shows us a way to push through it all — he shows us from day 1 that the Dillon way is the American way, that clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose. Thank you, Friday Night Lights, for teaching us all why it’s so f***ing great to be American.

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World & Other Cliche Epiphanies

[Peter Jang]

So, as many of you know, as I set out on this wild pursuit of becoming a writer, I’ve run into quite a few internal struggles, the most obvious of which is the financial concerns that leave me having fitful nightmares and other such unpleasantries. To ease the burden that seems to be equal parts uncertainty and aimlessness, I’ve been on an increasingly expansive quests for information because reading biographies on Raymond Carver and the like does nothing for me other than want to down a fifth of Four Roses (something every single one of Carver’s protagonists seems to be prone to do). I’ve arranged meetings with editors, writers, teachers, etc. and I’ve come to realize that literary art, no matter how much I’ve dressed it up as a kind of median between visual art and learned prose, is art. I hate this. I really do because what comes with art is a light wallet and no real prospects of being happy.

I’ll be honest: no matter how ridiculous this might sound, I came to convince myself that happiness was not the pursuit I had intended for myself. Why not give myself over to a higher purpose? Why not pour myself into a work that might stand a fairer chance against time than my own life? Why not, why not, why not? When asking these questions, it actually isn’t so hard to convince oneself that happiness really isn’t all that essential in life. But theoretical thought is a dangerous thing. I’ve found that what I cook up in my head rarely ever plays out the way I want it to in real life. In fact, it seems like the more I plan for something to happen, the less I can expect it to actually be realized. 

Eventually, I realized that I had completely theorized this impossible future for myself where I romantically fantasized about living this bohemian life. (Maybe this is why some readers sniffed out the lingering threads of hipsterdom in my ideas.) Life, after all, is rarely this kind. It, therefore, became inevitable that I become obsessed with the other side of the spectrum: money. (If any of you have come to learn anything about me, it is that I have no middle ground. I’m one of those folks who runs at 110% or not at all.) It wasn’t that I saw myself going into e-trading or finance or investment banking, I just figured that I could make some money off of commercial work like advertising or commercial photography. (I won’t lie, I have these competing ambitions in writing and photography that still leave me worried about my true passions but this is a story for another time.) For months, I fantasized about big money, big cars, big everything but just as I realized my hipster dreams were silly, I realized that living this purely material life wouldn’t be so fulfilling.

The more astute readers out there will now note that all these matters really concern themselves with that which I’d once convinced myself was unecessary: happiness. But happiness isn’t exactly the word I’d use this time around; rather, fulfillment is the better term. Whatever you want to call it, I never made this realization. In fact, until today, I was still convinced that happiness/fulfillment/whatever you want to call it was a totally irrelevant issue. Then, I ran into a photo professor I had last year. We talked for a while about a lot of things but I did what I’d done with everyone I’d hunted out in this wide quest for career/life information: I picked his brain, I tried to learn from his experiences.

Up until I talked with this professor, I’d eventually chalked up my search for life advice to be a futile task. Everyone I’d met had become so entrenched in their beliefs and niches in their industries that I’d found it nearly impossible to really connect with them on a relatable level. But this professor urged me to ask more questions. It was strange; while he told me about his own relationship to his medium, he did little to superimpose his experience ont mine — he let me take what I could from his experience but, more importantly, guided me to the fundamental questions I need to answer before I could make any major steps in my life. Instead of asking all those ‘why not’ questions, he seemed to ask me the ‘why’ questions, which are infinitely harder to answer if answerable at all. 

I can’t say I know why I’ve gravitated towards the fine and literary arts. I can’t say I know why I feel so conflicted about my media and my pursuit of the work. I can’t say I know why or even if I should ask why I seem to have this extreme simultaneous attraction and revulsion to commercial work. I can only say that I need to keep asking why or else I’ll never even come close to developing an understanding about myself. Now I don’t think everyone has to ask these questions. I think there are people out there who are beyond the petty conscious insecurities that are socially prescribed to purer forms of art. In fact, I think most artists easily overcome the financial insecurity of their endeavors but I can’t and I know I’m not the only one. 

I don’t think there are any satisfying answers but I think there are satisfying moments where we realize asking these self-reflecting questions are meaningful. Earlier today, I was riding the train back from New York to Boston when I saw this incredibly attractive woman. I don’t know what that means exactly only that, in that moment, I knew she had this inescapable beauty that was truly captivating and elevating. Like the famous national geographic picture (found at the start of this post), this woman carried the air of an entire world with her. This, a kind of beauty that is truly indescribable. I realized nothing at the time but, in retrospect, I feel that this indescribability is the reason art, for me, is vital. My professor called it connecting with the world. 

I know I always come back to cliches but I’d like to make mention of the fact that this post, while about a lot of things, is really about fear. I forget who said it but I agree with this sentiment: a man without fear is stupid, a man owned by fear is cowardly, but a man who owns his fear is wise and brave. In some sense, I think my professor, through his own experience and courage, owned his fears — this, a rare thing in a world where it seems so easy to make compromise after compromise until we are entrenched in our tiny, meaningless niches. 

There is probably a lot more to be learned here but if there is one thing I will take away, it is this: let there be more questions, let there be more of the most beautiful women in the world, let there be art because, without it, what do we have?

Largo

[Mike Evans]

What with the recent fluctuating readership, Pete and I have decided to slow the blog down to three posts per week — enough time to read each post and not so much time that if a post bores you another post will come up before you get bored and stop visiting GB altogether. This announcement has been brought to you by the Trystero Organization for the promotion of lethargy.

Getting It Done

[Peter Jang]

For many, the hardest part about writing is actually doing the writing. Maybe this is why writers from Zadie Smith to Jonathan Franzen all recommend finding a way to remove yourself from the internet. In fact, programs like DarkRoom (see: http://gigaom.com/collaboration/10-free-minimalist-word-processors/) are cropping up all over the place. These programs force you to focus on the document. Some programs force you to focus on individual sentences, others even turn off the wireless device in your computer. For a while, I found it incredible that such apps existed. How could people not sit down and write what they’d been planning or thinking about? Then I realized I was no different. Everyday I have ideas for a novel I’ve been planning — everything from names to scenes to themes to mammoth character arcs, I’ve dreamed up in notepads and in my thoughts. So why can’t I write them out? 

The internet is a strange thing/place/distraction. I find that when I’m really procrastinating (which I’m terribly good at), the internet provides this strange black hole for my time, attention, energy, etc. On the one hand, it’s entirely too disturbing to go into. I can literally spend three hours just staring at my screen, reading but not thinking, watching but not absorbing. The sun will set, the clock will tick, and soon enough I’ll look at my watch and it will already be time for my evening workout, which, in this case, is more appealing than actually writing. The internet will engage me with things I never knew could interest me: cricket, affordable backpacks, how-to books in French, France, etc. Such is the nature of an information network that has little-to-no quality control and is an ever-growing space for high-interest, low-commitment activities. Web games, Twitter, blogs (ha), porn — the internet appeals to the American Attitude that resides in all of our hearts: quick and easy satisfaction.

When considering the powers of persuasion possessed by the web, I guess it isn’t so preposterous that anyone and everyone can turn to it in their weakest moments of total focal abandon. But, as related to writing, it is but another distraction. When you look at apps like DarkRoom, it is clear that they are tailored to creative writers. (There are not features other than typing and they don’t save in the business standard of .doc or .docx.) What is it about creative writing that makes it so much harder to focus than, say, writing an academic paper on the ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church in the Byzantine Era? 

Keeping in mind that all I have to offer is speculation, here are my thoughts: if the internet is like Days of Our Lives where the quality of the show, the characters, and the plot don’t matter, then writing is like The Wire — hard to watch but fundamentally fulfilling and intellectually engaging. If TV isn’t your thing, then basically what I’m saying is that creative writing is like the Rodeo of horseback riding. (My God, why can’t I stop with the freaking terrible analogies!) There is only so much writers can control while there is so much to consider. I think that is why all writers, from classic authors like Fitzgerald to contemporary ones like Eggers, all say that writing is something that never gets easier with time. The fact that we live in the age of the internet doesn’t really help matters much. 

The reason I bring all this up is that I heard a good bit of self help today. (Frown all you want, self help can sometimes be good for work ethic (and as Chekhov would agree: the soul)!) Think about the goal, the finished product, and apps like DarkRoom come to feel like superfluous tools. As many of you might be able to relate to, this comes as a part of a tread into my personal philosophy on writing. I feel like working out these issues as an individual writer eases the process of writing on a fundamental level, no matter how hard the actual practice may turn out to be. The point is, as a writer, there is so much to do and, really, so little time to do it. (We all have to work day jobs to pay the bills.) Shouldn’t we aspire to fulfill our visions? Shouldn’t we make real our thoughts and plans? This is an issue that is more fundamental than just writing. So fuck the internet. At least while we’re writing.

How Sweet It Is…

[Mike Evans]

The Iowa Summer Writing Festival is up and at it again with a new crowd, even a new set of instructors. Having taken workshops from flash fiction to mixed media, I can say officially say that the ISWF offers something for everyone. What has remain the same in the few weeks I’ve spent here in Iowa City is the level of energy and the enthusiasm of the participants. I was told that signing up for the later workshops might yield a different experience (possibly a worse one than the offered the first few weeks) but I can’t say that it has tapered in any way. Most of the administrators of the events are the same; in that sense, I suppose there is some wear but other than that, I have seen nothing but enthusiasm in every workshop. I’ll keep you all updated.

Looking For Contributors!

[Mike Evans]

As the topic suggests, we are in talks with several friends about contributing work to Generation Boredom. I understand the incentive is minimal seeing as how we, here at G.B. are currently a not-for-profit online publication. But, for you college grads, this could add nicely to your online portfolio. As we begin to open up some connections with Poets & Writers (www.pw.org), Gemini Magazine, and couple other print and online publications, contributing to Generation Boredom could be a great addition to your resumes. 

For more information, visit our about page at http://www.generationboredom.com/aboutgb

-Mike

Writing as Masochism

[Peter Jang]

Pre-post notice: 
I just got logged out of a conversation with Mike, who by the way is losing his mind during his week off at the ISWF (Iowa Summer Writing Festival). (Incidentally, I was watching the movie version of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son and noticed that the backdrop for the story was Iowa City. I have to say, as much as I personally love IC, they make the place look epically drab in the movie.) I was catching up with him about last night’s post and I came to realize that, though it was a clear step in the right direction, the whole thing ended up reading like this long, wordy rant that really just seemed to say, “hey y’all, I’m pissed.” So Mike was going to stop doing all this backseat steering and do a post on his experience at the ISWF. But I read a draft of his two-pager and we both agreed that it did little more than affirm what I’d discussed in my IWSP posts. (See http://www.generationboredom.com/post/7266082797/retrospective-iowa-summer-writing-festival) So tonight, I’ll just leave you with a brief response to something I’ve mentioned in some of my earlier posts: the difficulty of writing fiction.

* * *

I was recently at dinner with a new acquaintance when I was asked the following question: do you enjoy writing. On the surface, this question is a simple one. Yes or no. Those are the only options the question seems to ask of us yet I couldn’t give an answer. As I sat there mumbling some hasty explanation as to my complicated relationship to writing, I felt a familiar pang of doubt ring through me. If I couldn’t say I enjoyed it, did that mean I didn’t? 

When I look around at my friends who are also aspiring writers, I can recall having similar conversations with them. Sometimes I get an exuberant Yes or sometimes an unconvincing shrug. Sometimes I get a No, which leaves me wondering why the hell that person writes at all. I mean, shouldn’t you do what makes you happy? Shouldn’t you, in some way, enjoy the vocation, the calling, the lifestyle — the Whatever, you’ve committed your life to?

After my dinner, I caffeinated myself and spent the night thinking about how I’d really have answered that question. I often do this. I am one of those folks who relishes the wandering hours of pre-dawn philosophy often accompanied with the greatest advocate for truth: liquor. (I know this tact is frowned upon historically by men of action. (Churchill: I never worry about action, but only inaction.)) But, this time, I was unable to draw a convincing conclusion. See, for me, writing is and always will be a mental and emotional strain. It is like method acting; there is a certain amount of time spent in inhabiting the mind of a character. But instead of one character for a few months, I’m switching from character to character from chapter to chapter, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph. I find myself considering not only the present scene from the character’s perspective but also the world in which I’ve cast them. Hundreds of times I ask myself in a hundred different ways: who am I? What do I want? What do I hate? What is my life all about?

It may sound melodramatic but this is the task a writer (or at least a writer who aspires to examine a portion of his own reality) must undertake. Undertake — the perfect word. Sometimes I feel very much like an undertaker: respectfully preserving, futilely understanding, fictionally dressing up all these characters whose lives I can really only imagine about. I move forward ceremoniously, methodically, carefully trying to present to you, the real, a living and painfully brief experience with these characters. It’s a difficult task and morbid. How am I supposed to enjoy the process?

Do I enjoy writing? This question has kept me up countless nights. Hemingway calls writing the simple task of sitting down and bleeding. Writing is to call forth the energy that has sustained our living pasts and expend it in feeble words and even more useless devices. Yet stories move us; they take us places within ourselves we have never understood or even known about. They broach us on experiences of love, despair, triumph, defeat. Writing is living. 

When I take workshops, I love getting feedback from critical readers. I like the observations, the critiques, the praise (I know Hemingway called writers in writing groups those people who were proud of patting themselves on their backs but I don’t care). But what I love about workshops is seeing that I’ve actually succeeded in engaging my own reality with my readers. It is selfish, I know, but enduring and timeless and, for this reason, somehow made to be generous as well. You can understand me, the way I see the world; you can experience what I experience. And so, with feeble words and dopey symbols, themes, and metaphors, I connect myself and my reality to you. This, I can say assuredly, I enjoy. 

Perhaps the question of enjoying writing is a flawed one. It oversimplifies that which cannot be reduced. However, I do see it as a necessary inquiry for all practicing writers because I’m sure everyone comes to their own answers. At the very least, they come to the answers in their own ways. I feel as though writers who never struggle with this question throughout their careers fall back on stereotypes and cliche scenes because they cannot understand the fundamental integrity true writing demands. (Hence thrillers, sci-fi, romance, etc.) They may live to write but they could never write to live.

Perhaps true writing is nothing more than a form of self-torture. We investigate our realities in our writing while the experience of actually living as ourselves eludes us. We find pleasure in a connection that has no dialogue. We think in abstractions and details that pass as irrelevant in the everyday world. We do not fit. Yet we do what we do. Perhaps writing is as masochism, a pleasure of pain. 

* * *

P.S.
The trouble with this approach, as I’m sure you critical readers out there have picked up on, is the glaring trouble of introspection. Introspection grounds itself in introversion and introverts hardly experience the world around them. How then can introverts write about anything that can connect them to their readers. I am not well versed enough in philosophy to grant any verity to my assertions or to the conclusion that I’ve drawn from my own experiences. However, I can say that what little experience I’ve drawn from, I can find some truth or description of it that at least seems universal. At the very least, I can try to convince you  of how I see the world. Maybe that is also what writing is: absolute artifice. But now, wondering about this, I’ll have a few more fitful nights of caffeinated thought. I hate you, critical readers.

The Trystero Organization (A Dull Catharsis)

[Peter Jang]

Yes, the not-so-cultish Trystero muted horn seems as if it was always bound to make an appearance on Generation Boredom. It seems, despite whatever feverish claims I’ve made in the past, you readers have me pegged as nothing more than an angsty aberration in the ever-growing subculture of hipsterdom. But let me ask you this: truly, how many of you  ’artists’ and covertly purple Brooklynites have actually given Pynchon the time of day? I’ve heard Gravity’s Rainbow used as some kind of term — like another quip in the arsenal of obscure (but not really so obscure) retorts. Having recently finished my first read of The Crying of Lot 49 and only about two hundred pages into my rereading of Gravity’s Rainbow, I feel confident in saying that nothing about either novel can be boiled down into simplistic evidence for whatever postpostmodern irony is apparently so damn alluring.

See, that’s the trouble with the current state of literary culture. Prophets like David Foster Wallace come blowing into our reading lives, hailing the end of postmodernism, warning us of not only the dangers of such concepts but also of their destructive natures, and we don’t listen. So here we are today with two contingents of critics: one saying literary traditions are flawed concepts, the other replying that such concepts are of the utmost importance — that they are the keys to reading intertextually and to picking the brains of authors. But what no one seems to realize or care about is the fact that both opinions are just two sides of the same coin. The stance each contingent takes implicitly validates the other. So, despite whatever petty issues both sides are concerning themselves with, the readers are the ones who are left with the task of qualifying the novels they are reading. (Perhaps this is why, though folks are aware of the cheapness in thrillers, mysteries, and romance novels, they continue to read them. After all, the so-called authorities are squabbling over God knows what.)

Luckily literary criticism has long addressed this issue. Kind of. Though some theorists (say: Derrida) do not necessarily concern themselves with the ideas of other theorists (say: Benjamin), readers of both philosophers can quickly see that the conclusions they draw (coming from two completely disparate schools of thought) can be read in conflict with one another when applied to previously undiscussed texts (say: Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49). Derrida might have difficulty reconciling Pynchon’s apparent progression of the ‘postmodern tradition’ with his theory on deconstruction (if only because Pynchon’s philosophical sways seem so broad in scope). Likewise, though Benjamin might have an easier time reconciling the obvious distortion of the nature of reality with his theories on aesthetics, the simple fact that he might choose to impose the lens of aesthetics where Derrida might deconstruct the history of Pynchon’s own philosophy reveals a certain contradiction. So how is this any different from the squabbles of literary critics?

For me, the primary distinction is in the approach to the question of complexity. My gripe is with oversimplification but I can understand the possibility of over-sophistication in academic venues. After all, the average reader is as likely to read Benjamin and Derrida as he is to picking up a copy of Mein Kampf. What literary theorists accomplish, despite their apparent contradictions, is to allow a freedom of interpretation in the author’s intent (and skill). Though literary theory is often mired in ambiguous terms (i.e. ‘the other’) and often overwrought and/or circuitous arguments, theorists fundamentally understand the author’s intent through their works and not by their political or social environments and agendas. So while Derrida might deconstruct The Crying of Lot 49 and Benjamin relate it to the study of aesthetics, they are able to qualify Pynchon’s work without implicitly bending it to their arguments. 

I had the recent pleasure of discussing, in brief, the nature of literary criticism with a new acquaintance. Our discussion fell into the format mentioned above and somehow this acquaintance of mine had somehow managed to maintain an objective perspective on his own criticisms, allowing a kind of open dialogue to occur. It was in my realization of his open-mindedness that I allowed myself to fall into a kind of free-association thought process and I had epiphany, one that actually perfectly fit Pynchon’s work, specifically the nature of the Trystero Organization (his own reflective device/theme), into this dialogue on literary criticism. My epiphany was this: Montaigne. 

To date, I consider myself a light Montaigne reader; I’ve only read a dozen of his essays so, by no means, do I consider myself an expert on the father of the essay form. However, in what little I have read of Montaigne, I’ve come to realize that he transcends the pettiness of critical squabbles and the often-circuitous methods of academic theory. The only way to describe Montaigne’s essays is that they are the perfect balance of narrative cadence and didacticism. In so many words, he draws the reader into the question (in the case of The Crying of Lot 49, we come to ask the fundamental question of why this novel is so affecting), into the experience of thinking, then provides an answer. The essays are based on equal parts reason and sensibility.  

Pynchon affects a similar experience onto the reader but with a much more open-ended outcome. Since Pynchon rarely provides any real didacticism even from his characters of sincere conviction, the reader is left desiring more answers yet satisfied at the answer the novel seemingly sets out to find. (For those who haven’t read The Crying of Lot 49, this may be a bit of a spoiler:) The realization that the Trystero is as likely a conspiracy as it is the paranoid delusions of the protagonist should, by all accounts, be unsatisfying. This kind of ‘gotcha’ ending breaks all the conventions of literature but that — that seems to be Pynchon’s point. He doesn’t have to state anything to show us a truth that can broadly applied to the plot, this debate on literary criticism, or anything that might truly elude us.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin once wrote: “The novelist is drawn toward everything that is not yet completed. He may turn up on the field of representation in any authorial pose, he may depict real moments from his own life or make allusions to them… Every specific situation is historical. And the growth of literature and non-literature, are not laid up in heaven. Every specific situation is historical. And the growth of literature is not merely development and change within the fixed boundaries of any given definition; the boundaries themselves are constantly changing.” Where Bakhtin appeals to reason and elaborates through pure didacticism, Pynchon shows the reader (allows the reader to experience) that trying to define the undefinable is a task that may yield satisfaction to some but never unveils the truth.

P.S. Critics, theorists, readers alike will enjoy the fact that this: www.tristero.net exists.  

Generation Boredom v2.0

[Mike Evans]

Dear Readers,
I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Mike Evans and I am co-creator / editor of GB. This past week, I met with Pete in Iowa to discuss the ongoing situation with this blog. We both agreed that the posts had begun to lack focus and we determined several courses of action:

1.) To make GB a variety blog
2.) To make GB a literary blog
3.) To make GB a book club blog

We decided on the second option but with a twist. Pete goes into some depth on his personal website about our reasoning. The gist of our meeting was to narrow the focus of the blog, cutting out the photos and extraneous posts, and to theme our posts on literary lifestyle. By no means are Pete and I accomplished writers but we both thought that as we trod on down this path, we might shed some insight onto our concerns, our struggles, our joys, etc. We have already toyed with this concept in previous posts but are now making it a central theme.

If you want to learn more, visit www.peterjangnyc.com

Thank you for the readership and let us raise our glasses to a better, stronger, faster Generation Boredom.

Best,

Mike

Retrospective: Iowa Summer Writing Festival

[Peter Jang]

It’s been a little over a week since I first set foot in Iowa City for my week-long workshop. Maybe it’s too soon to be giving objective commentary seeing as how I’m still feeling pretty hyped about writing a couple new short stories (and especially seeing as how I rarely ever feel even remotely motivated to write my stories) but who ever said I needed to be objective? See, I’m fairly certain every attendee at Week 3 of the 2011 Iowa Summer Writing Festival (ISWF) has had an entirely unique experience. So maybe I’m in the minority but I can say with certitude that I had a wonderful week.

To be honest, I didn’t expect this to be the case at all. Before the trip, when I thought Iowa, I imagined pastures, farms, more than a few cows, tractors, and possibly some wheat fields. I mean, flying in, I was kind of taken aback by the sheer amount of open space. You have to understand that I grew up outside of Boston and went to college in New York. I had a brief encounter with the midwest during a cross-country road trip with my college roommate but most of our foot-travel was done in populous cities like Chicago, Denver, etc. It turns out, my estimation of Iowa wasn’t so far off. As compared to NYC, Iowa City definitely felt rural.

But rural isn’t bad in my book. I mean, there are a few things that put me off a little like the fact that 99% of the people I saw on campus were white or that there weren’t really many things to do at night. But, all in all, Iowa City was like a breath of fresh air. About 24 hours into my stay, I realized that the small town feel of the city was something I could definitely get used to. I don’t really consider myself to be a city kid nor do I really buy into the whole ‘small town’ vs ‘city’ duality. In fact, as cliche as it might sound, I really believe that every city and town has something unique to offer. In the case of Iowa City, it was the literary culture that seemed to pervade everything from sidewalk art to the number of bookstores that occupied one square mile near the university (I saw at least five). This isn’t to say New York doesn’t offer a vibrant literary scene (I doubt any other city attracts so many big-name writers) with weekly readings and famous bookstores like the Strand. But Iowa offers a completely saturated feel.

Maybe this is because of the annual ISWF or maybe because Iowa City is the first UNESCO city of literature in the United States. I don’t know but whatever it was that kind of environment certainly took my motivation to write off of the back burner. The ISWF is actually a bit of a gamble. It’s hard for any new attendee to know what to expect; until you meet them, the professors are just resumes you can view online. The other attendees you can’t know until you finally gather on that first night to exchange stories. I can easily see it being possible for an attendee to really get a poor draw, either not getting along with the professor or just getting a group of writers who are of significantly higher or lower ability. For this reason, the fact that their are no prerequisites to most of the courses makes the process of choosing a workshop feel a bit like drawing straws. 

However, the ISWF has been running for twenty-five years so clearly they must be doing something right. I can’t say for sure but I think the ISWF, being a writing festival, attracts committed writers. Though skill levels may vary, the process of workshopping is actually one that scales with each writer’s ability. After all, I doubt any of us has taken a workshop where there hasn’t been that new writer who really struggles to string together a cohesive narrative. Likewise, I doubt any of us has taken a workshop where there hasn’t been a writer who leaves us in awe. For these reasons, a workshop always caters to the median. The writer with the most humble of skills benefits the most while the writer of greatest talent still gets great reader feedback and some critical feedback from the professor. But of course, skill level isn’t the only factor that lends itself to a successful workshop. What can or break a workshop are personalities.

Believe it or not, I am, by nature, not a very talkative person. (Maybe this is because my dad is a man of few words or maybe this is because I only feel like talking to people I can really connect with or relate to.) I proved to be a useless wallflower in my early workshops and in groups that lack focus and drive, I tend to revert back to this wallflower approach. I would’ve had the same approach for my workshop at the ISWF had it not been only a week. But I never had the chance to not speak either. Everyone there was as interested and passionate about writing as I was (and am). I made great connections not only with other attendees but with my professor as well. However, I hear that this is not always the case. I count myself lucky that the attendees at my workshop were, for the most part, very likable and open-minded. I don’t have any doubts that I will keep in touch with many of them.

The professor, who I will call Professor M, was probably one of the best workshop professors I’ve ever had. She was the ideal blend of critical insight and open-mindedness that made taking her workshop a real pleasure. I imagine teaching creative writing must feel like a task in futility. While technical skill can be taught, the integrity, turns of phrases, and the cadence of a story rests heavily on the writer’s latent ability. (At least this is how I imagine it to be.) Some professors compensate by rigidly structuring their critiquing method to ‘positives’ and ‘negatives.’ Others critique more from intuition and experience. These professors also tend to have their own biases as do students and no matter how objective the process of workshopping tries to be, there are elements of a story that work for some and don’t for others. Professor M was both a structured critiquer but also drew from her own experience; on top of this, she was open-minded about how individual stories functioned, making her workshops run smoothly and productively.

The ISWF is also scheduled in a way that allows for social activity as well as productivity. From 7:30 - 11:00, writers gather at the Capanna cafe, exchanging manuscripts, discussing books, etc. It is a great way to ease into the day and also allows time to get some critiquing done in a relaxing environment or even to get some words on paper if you’re feeling particularly inspired. At 11:00, a lecture series is scheduled ranging from very technical topics like ‘the benefits of different narrative voices’ to broader lifestyle topics like ‘working as a professional writer.’ (Those aren’t the exact lecture titles but capture the general ideas.) The elevenses, as they are called, run for varying lengths but generally leave some time between the end and 2:00 to grab some lunch. From 2:00-5:00, workshops meet and the rest of the evening is either left for dinner socials or roaming the surprisingly vibrant streets of Iowa City. (The Prairie Lights Bookstore may have the best selection of fiction I have ever seen. I feel like I’m betraying McNally Jackson (NYC) just by saying that but it may be true.) 

Now, a short disclaimer to younger readers, I was probably the only 22 year-old in attendance at Week 3 of the ISWF. I can’t say for sure but I think the ISWF mainly attracts older writers who’ve had some distance or rare experience with a workshop setting. This, however, should not deter you. All the writers in my workshop were committed, interested writers, whom I can easily say were better critics and writers than most of the young writers I’d workshopped with in college. To be blunt, there was no bullshit. There was none of that ‘I’m a tortured artist’ bullshit or that hipster culture that prioritizes obscurity and angst over everything. (I know it’s a bit irrational to say this but I truly believe that writers are observers who look beyond word-idea relationships. That is to say, writers observe without capturing or proposing terminology.) I can’t say for sure what young writers are all about but I can say that the counter culture scene/obscurity fiends were definitely one of the things I didn’t care much for in NYC. (But more on this later.)

Perhaps it was that general feeling of literary purity in Iowa City (that stood in contrast to the hyped literary scene of New York City) that made the experience all the more pleasurable for me. It is really hard to put into words my entire experience of the ISWF. Perhaps the best suggestion I have for aspiring writers is to actually attend a workshop at the ISWF. All I can say is, come next year, I’ll be willing to roll the dice again and hope for as great an experience I had this year.

Breathe Easy. This is America.

[Peter Jang]

Pre-post notice: The week hiatus is now off. I have returned from Iowa and am back in the full swing of things. I am currently in talks with a few writers (with stories published in magazines) about contributions or collaborations in a blog-type schema. To be honest, I’m not sure if I’ve got the time but either way I may be skimming down on the post lengths here at Generation Boredom. Instead, I’ve been really bugging the lovely Ms. Landry to contribute a weekly post, if only to expand this project in a new direction. I’ll keep y’all posted. I will do a full Iowa Summer Writing Festival Rundown tomorrow or possibly tomorrow and the day after. But today, we celebrate America.

* * *

Today, July 4th, we celebrate America. We do it up with booze, bands, and bbq, and damn it to hell, if we don’t throw ourselves the biggest, most patriotic, national party of all time. Americans love celebrating America and we haven’t got a shortage of national holidays (I mean, we might not have France beat in the total number of national holidays but we celebrate our holidays. We have the tinsel, the music, the flags, etc. and we do what we do, drunk. That’s got to count for something.) In the words of Trey Parker: America! America! Fuck yeah! America!

Tomorrow, we’ll vomit, we’ll pick up the litter, we’ll empty half-drunk cans of booze down the kitchen sink, and maybe we’ll sneak a few bites of cold BBQ. I mean, you can’t have shame and celebrate the 4th of July proper. Then, we’ll carry on with the summer and wait until Labor Day or maybe Halloween, when we’ll do it all over again the American Way. At least, this is how most of us will manage our epic hangovers that seem to have effects that last a good month or two. But some of us will wake up, vomit, pick up the litter, then sip on those flat cans of beer and really let it sink in that most days in America really don’t live up to the standards we set ourselves on the holidays.

Ok, so most Americans aren’t in their twenties and most of us certainly don’t get blackout drunk on a holiday that doesn’t really distinguish itself (at least in terms of festivities) from most other national holiday. In fact, some of us, like myself, think about their jobs the following day and how much it would suck to try and read through about a hundred pages of slush with a killer hangover. You would think that folks like myself would be a little more critical about the holiday and maybe try to justify our antisocial choice with a bit of ironic reflection and a lot of sarcasm. Surprisingly, a lot of counter-culture kids in their twenties have that portion of the excuse market, cornered. Me? I may have a bit of misplaced redneck in me because a good time sounds a lot like going down to the lake, throwing back a few cold ones and, and driving about fifty golf balls as far out into the water as I can. Screw the music, the crowds, the drunken hoopla. 

In fact, the more I think about the different groups of friends I have and the different kinds of people I’ve met in my relatively brief stays in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York, I realize that this American celebration is as much a stereotype as any other American cliche. I can just as easily imagine a small gathering of Brooklynites on Williamsburg Waterfront chatting over a couple six packs as I can a bunch of sloppy drunk Bostonians singing along to the national anthem on the banks of the Charles. As much as I hate to bring this particular post into a literary scope, I am reminded of David Foster Wallace and his belief that Americans have come to these stereotyped cliches based on televisual influences. If only we could really accept America as a culturally centerless nation, could we be patriotic in our own ways without feeling a lame obligation to some Hollywood ideal. 

If only. If only this were true, tomorrow I wouldn’t feel like an alien, waking up sober with no mess to clean or cold BBQ to munch on. If only this were true, tomorrow I wouldn’t wake up feeling like I wasn’t American. For now, I can breathe easy, knowing that, no matter how I feel, this place I live in — this is America.

* * *

P.S.

You know, I realize that my posts always tend to fall into these cynical conclusions that fundamentally end up saying, ‘I don’t have any answers and neither do you.” In fact, I am actually an optimistic person. Crazy? Maybe. Cynical? No. I’m not so troubled that I have difficulty accepting reality. I’m just a little set back when it comes tounderstanding it. So I apologize if reading this blog gets you feeling down because, really, I am trying to uplift — ironic as that might sound.