Effects are born of agreements

Dear __________,

I apologize for the gaps between our correspondence. And though it will serve as no adequate excuse for such silences, your informant told you correctly: I am currently writing a novel. Or, if not writing, dwelling on the writing of a novel. Or, if not a novel, something whose ambitions are matched only by its remaining largely unread.

I’m holding out hope I can make my minimalistic plotting work. As you know very well, I’m far more interested in consequences (and the responses to consequences) than I am plots, which tend to be too forward-focused and linear for my taste. Consequences realign not simply our perception but our experiences of the past, as much even as they create an imagined future. Dare we go so so far as to say that the present is spent mostly negotiating the indistinguishable boundary between responding to these things past and anticipating those things to come? If this is so, could it be said further that consequences are a violence in & against the occurrence of the moment?

Once we get into the language of violence, and thus of conflict & of tension, we’re into the territory of story. If that is the case, how does one “tell” a story? We may tell of a story, much like we might read or write about conflict or violence, but I’m less sure our plots are up to the challenge they set for themselves of capturing (even as a journalistic snapshot) the experience to which it lays claim. This might be a more convoluted way of reiterating the idea that realist fiction is never as real as it claims.

Story, I am suggesting, is not told; it is experienced – and the only means of this experience, in writing anyway, is through the occurrence of language (which is to say, style). This is all quite abstract, I admit, and one’s stylistic efforts tend to require a bit of compromise if you wish actually to be read, but I firmly believe that when one’s reach too often meets one’s grasp, one’s efforts are likely not worth the time of others.

For my story, I’m interested in conjuring the Gothic South I never so much lived as I read & heard about while growing up in the domesticated suburbs of the New South. I’ve been re-reading Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner for inspiration in this regard. The tale at present consists of three brothers, with all their unspoken rivalries and inarticulate animosities. Each brother, though, separated in a variety of ways and degrees, are incorporated in & by the consequences of his siblings’ actions & inactions (those real & imagined, interpreted & anticipated). This tension between separation and incorporation is sharpened by a sudden act of physical violence with, at least in my present telling, no immediately discernible reason or meaning, to which the brothers must agree in their response. This agreement, I might note, is what we tend simplistically to identify as “effect”.

Is, though, the committer of violence (in this case, one of the brothers) necessarily the cause of this violence’s effects? Vengeance, arguably, is no more or less an effect of violence than forgiveness. Or, for that matter, death is no more or less an effect than survival. Effects are born of agreements, broadly understood, and my story will be “about” such a coming to agreement. This “coming to agreement,” however, though certainly a part of the plot is also the very stuff that cannot be circumscribed by plot. As in my claim about the depiction of violence, this agreement, because it too is a kind of violence, is one that I hope readers might more readily experience in the language of its arrival rather than in its narrative depiction.

But I’m sure I’ve said too much. For you & me alike on the matter.

Yours,

B.

Through them, these spectacles, we realize how blind we’ve become & will remain.

Dear __________,

I disagree very strong, actually. I don’t know why art should have to bring either pleasure or meaning, let alone be selfless. Art, as I see it, in the barest of terms, creates a kind of consciousness. It distributes our senses in ways that we would rarely, if ever, manage through the strictly mundane. Even those rare moments when the mundane does become art, somehow, often by way of someone, this mundane has been recast. Unlike most of my literary & philosophical heroes, however, I don’t think I really believe in the solitary genius puppeetering his or her way above the paragraphs & pages, in full command every step of the way of the failures & successes; nor do I regard the act of creation as his/her abject humiliation or self-emptying. The creator is not so much lost as conceptually redistributed, shuffled and re-dealt for a new hand. There may well be humility involved in this, but nothing so terminal as “selflessness.”

You are the third or fourth person in recent weeks to note my tendency to swing between cynicism & sentiment. A friend wrote me the other day to say, for example: “I’ve no how idea you seem to manage a sort of idealistic timelessness sharing the page with bleak and painful modernity at the same time. . . .” It is, I suppose, quite true. As I’ve gotten older, I just don’t have the emotional energy for unbridled cynicism. But neither do I trade in the industries & activities that are supposed either to create hope or, barring that, provide distraction from this hope’s conspicuous absence. On the contrary, the literature about which I’m idealistic and/or enthusiastic is not fully (or sometimes at all) in the service of hope, and rarely is it a medium of distraction. It is, rather, as I see it, an investment in the very happening of the world. For precisely this reason, it could never be free of hope or despair — or, for that matter, orgasm & boredom. A silly thought, perhaps, that one can achieve all this w/ a nose in a book or eyes strained on tiny fonts sometimes smudged by time, drink & dinner, but no sillier than the more or less “real world” alternatives that are continually set before me.

Samuel Beckett. Yes, as a matter of fact, he is quite important to me. Some authors, however, I simply cannot write about. Not because they are somehow above the fray, or because I cannot do them justice. Few things are so holy or unspeakable. Just ask Yahweh. No, such authors, esp. Beckett, are spectacles — they are the thing beheld, like the sun in the opening sentence of Murphy (“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.”) that becomes the means by which we see everything else. Through them, these spectacles, we realize how blind we’ve become & will remain. (Debord was only half-right about the society of the spectacle, but I’m not sure which half.)

Oh, and yes, though I’ve no discernible characters of which to speak or plots to keep, I’m confident I’ve written a few sentences worth keeping. It is perhaps bad form to confess, but I’m not very self-deprecating when it comes to my writing. I accept that it is not for everybody (or, indeed, for most). But, why, selflessness be damned, I enjoy much of it, especially so when I must work to rehabilitate a piece — or, more likely, a piece from a piece. The rest can be rubbished, or published on a blog somewhere. Some are, of course, unworthy of the effort, but we could all use a little wasteful discipline in our life.

Yours,

Now is the time to set aside childish things: bad decisions await.

Dear _______,

Yes, you surmise correctly. I was indeed “once in school.” Very deeply in school, in fact. Ah, but it seems now that the bad decisions of my adult ambition did very little to provide proper redress for the poor judgements of my immaturity. Which is to say, my non-academic life today was one borne not of principled decision, at least not on my part, but is a sentence imposed by circumstance.

I was describing to somebody the other day my sense of alienation from what passes for popular — we were specifically discussing online writing. I much to prefer to read, meditate even, discuss at length, with myself certainly but also occasionally with others, things that beg to be re-read — things to which one must & want to return. For some, there is a libidinal aspect to this: some kind of gratification gained. But for me, such writing is almost strictly a sort of survival, a kind of oxygen. This preference informs what I try to write, as well. Sadly, this desire is rarely shared by even my closest friends. Utility is the name of the game, it seems, certainly of success, in the service of a pursuit of truth or knowledge, but also enjoyment & distraction. This, in my experience, is the prevalent pose, if not necessarily the default, of even a good many doctored literature professors. I don’t begrudge them this; it’s not, after all, like I’m innocent of it either, even in the articulation of the distinction. But preferences, such as they are, always exceed their expression.

Many of my friends remain far more idealistic with respect to higher education than do I. Most of them still believe in the value of the humanities, for example (of a well-rounded mind, the moral intelligence honed, etc.). And, yes, as far as it goes, as is the case with many a doe-eyed humanistic truism, I suppose I believe in that too. My problem is simply the cost of such an education these days. It all seems to me vaguely like a criminal enterprise. And while much of contemporary Western life likely is as well, at least from the perspective of the well-read, they being the ones with a sensibility & perspective that goes beyond the immediacy of the moment & all manner of perceived needs & outrage when these are not met, who have not lost their taste for “the enemy’s” blood so much as they have the confidence to know where to begin biting, the criminality of the American higher education system seems the one easiest for me to avoid. Though, of course, I didn’t avoid it, did I? — and, worse still, I would gladly accept a position anywhere if somebody should email me today to offer one. Perhaps another benefit of being well-read is the capacity to knowingly deceive oneself, marking the fact one feels bad about it all as a kind of credit in one’s favor as one continues the deception.

I hope you are well. Enjoy your twenty-fifth birthday. Now is the time to set aside childish things: bad decisions await.

Yours,

Better, in this case, inept than assassin

Dear _________,

It’s complex, isn’t it? Because one shares work, as I do with you, as I do regularly online, & as I did at that much lamented reading, out of a desire for self-assertion. Though, I should note, not necessarily affirmation. Some assertions, after all, divest you of yourself, don’t they, until they (& you) become an imposition on everybody else. There is perhaps a time & a place for that, too, though it would be unwise to anticipate where & when. Better, in this case, inept than assassin.

And yet, nevertheless, and this is the point of my writing you today, there is also a real need, no, for the work one shares with others to be about more than the one who shares? Does this not for some speak to the need for a political poetry (about peoples) or maybe a religious poetry (about practices)? Or, still for others, like me, & I think you, flag the necessity that a truly memorable writing is one that is so stylized & intentional that the author herself is lost, but by no means vanished, within the language?

No, none of this need comes necessarily at the loss of the writer, her identity, specific issues, of gender or of past, etc. It is my position, rather, that it, when done well, deepens their significance beyond the mildly therapeutic, if nevertheless flatulent, confines of “expressing yourself.”

Best,

the outlines of a form emptied of everything but form itself

^{Francesca Woodman, Untitled}

Dear _________,

I, of course, agree. You were hiding in plain sight again, weren’t you? Plain, perhaps, but certainly not ordinary. No, never that.

Your departures, as much from yourself as from us, those blanks unmentioned and breaks untold, the outlines of a form emptied of everything but form itself — these come, always, with a cost. To succeed in these is a peculiarly welcome failure, though. How else could we, those of plain sight, see anything at all?

Your absences, you surely know, are a taking leave that are never quite achieved. And for this we, & more importantly I suspect you, are grateful. Because you want to be seen as unseen, don’t you? You are the best at hiding because you are in fact the worst at it.

Where the exhibitionist has made the anonymity of sight into a fetish of pursuit, for you is it a curse somehow to redeem?

The inevitability of a name is as much birthright as it is tombstone.

^{Francesca Woodman, Untitled}

a momentary disintegration

Dear _________.

Old friend, you are missed! I hope this note finds you well.

Last night I was out very late, first standing, then sitting, and then nearly sleeping next to strangers at Sproul Plaza in Berkeley. I came home around midnight or so, I’d say, though I was unable to sleep for quite some time because of the unfolding events of the evening. Things began in Oakland, as they for me so often do. There was a highly contentious anti-vandalism/anti-violence proposal being pitched at Oakland Commune’s General Assembly and the all-hands-on-deck vibe was justified by the new faces in attendance who were carrying placards pleading sympathy with the Occupiers alongside disappointment. (“Oakland’s 99% Feels Occupied by the Occupiers,” etc.) As I sat through the interminable proceedings (they always are, in my opinion, but so it is w/ these things), smelling the quite lovely food being served over my shoulder, I was sent the following video filmed in Berkeley earlier that afternoon.

While I watched the above scene on my phone, I could hear in the Oakland amphitheater words like “vandalism” and “violence” being tossed around as though they were indistinguishable, or at least conversational kin. I was disturbed by the contrast between the muted images on my small screen & the din of good intentions playing out in large all around me. I lingered for a while, but eventually left.

I knew where I was going but was, nevertheless, surprised when I ended up in Berkeley, walking quite hurriedly to Sproul Plaza, where I was greeted, though the cry was obviously not intended for me, “MEDIC! WE NEED A MEDIC!” Someone had been hurt in the police melee that had occurred minutes before my arrival. I do not know how badly she was injured, but she was ushered away quickly. There seemed more anger prevalent than fear on the part of the crowd, though their numbers were not as large as I’d expected. I’m not a particularly brave person, as you well know. Nor, am I an adrenaline junky. I was not interested in being arrested or taking on more tear gas or once again being shot at by non-lethal projectiles. So, yes, I was rather afraid.

Fortunately, the numbers soon increased, dramatically so. Until eventually I could become a part of the crowd. And it was within this crowd, though I cannot place the moment itself, that I realized, despite what I recall recently telling you, I’m not seeking a cause with which to align myself so much as I am seeking an occasion to become strictly a body. I live so much in words. I feel awkward, even with people I know & love, when standing in the flesh, face to face, being seen. I have a confidence with verbal and written expression that I do not in my physical individuality & the space I cut in this world alone. What I want of a crowd, whose motivations, though myriad, are directed against or toward — in a kind of strange harmony, a music to which you would not listen for leisure — that which we may not know or be willing to say by name, is a momentary disintegration — a burning away of myself until all that is left is the presence of a body, not even a voice, in protest. That alone.

I should think not everybody has, or should have, this admittedly retrograde Romantic desire. But I confess it here, to you, though I feel no guilt.

Yours,

clumsiness & truth are so often intertwined we tend to take their copulation for granted.

Dear ________,

You misunderstand me, so let me be clear: I do not want the City to “support” the Occupy movement or its Commune. Indeed, though I risk misunderstanding yet again so soon after such momentary clarity, I think it would be very foolish public policy for them to do so. Much better, I think, to go the disingenuous route of the Councilperson whose letter you’ve attached, and insist on a vapid sympathy.

While I agree with the message of the Occupy movement and consider myself, along with all City Employees, including the men and women in our Police Department, to be part of the 99%, I disagree that occupying Frank Ogawa Plaza, shutting down the Port, or calling for a general strike against our City, is going to impact the 1% that this movement is supposed to be targeting.

What genius is on display here in one of the more nakedly clumsy co-opting of populism in my recent memory. The Councilperson doesn’t even bother to give the dignity of a period to his agreement. Here in the opening paragraph of his letter, the feeblest of commas is all that separates his agreement with “the message of the Occupy movement” and his self-consideration as “part of the 99%” from the declarative strongman of this magnificent sentence, “I disagree.” Provided the Occupy movement does not camp, strike, or shut down a port, which is to say, provided it does precisely nothing it has in actual fact done the past three weeks, he supports it completely. The only reservation he has concerning the Occupy movement is its actual existence. Would that it could be but a “message”! — by all means, a call to be dissatisfied, even angry, but to be so at home, please, as quietly as possible, yes, at least until election day, when those so called might vote for cynical opportunists like himself.

This Councilperson is in the minority, I believe, in his clumsiness, but not in the desire to show support for the Occupy movement on his own terms. And while I understand perfectly well why the City, all of its administrative stars & ideological stripes, would go this route, I fear you don’t appreciate why the Occupy movement would do well to develop a strong allergy to any & all public expressions of sympathy by those who are formally in (or are seeking formal) power. It seems to me that the moment a city officially loses the “but” after its stated solidarity is the moment the truth of this allegiance has been lost — clumsiness & truth are so often intertwined we tend to take their copulation for granted. (Or, I should add, it is the day after a revolutionary upheaval. But, alas, I am not at all confident any of us have enough dying light remaining actually to see that morning. Rome was not unbuilt in a day, as a friend said to me recently, and arguably our allotment of days are insufficient to the cause, if not the struggle itself.)

So, in close, while we agree that the Commune should remain illegal, I have no interest in its relocation. I would much prefer that it be declared illegal and remain exactly where it is, in order that it might continue to test the City’s ability to uphold the consequences of that illegality. The gross flouting of the law–or at least its outright disregard–this is what seems necessary to expose its many inadequacies (& those of its administrators). In this way, the Commune’s symbolic value as a site of disobedience is also the unavoidable germ of its undoing. The present age, you’ve insisted in the past, has had very little real use for such symbols, but are either of us yet prepared to say the same of the future that remains?

Yours,

We will be here a while.

An open email I sent to Oakland Mayor Quan after (a) reading her bizarre letter to the Occupants and (b) watching her come out to speak and then flee back inside City Hall upon not being received with open arms.

* * *

Dear Mayor Quan,

You apologize? Really? Do you seriously believe this is sufficient? Did nobody ever tell you, a mother or a father, a kind uncle, a teacher somewhere along the way, or even a legal adviser you opted to ignore, “Sometimes ‘sorry’ is not enough.” Sometimes, rather, it takes time, and during that time it requires effort. Thus far, since your return from D.C. — how was that, by the way? did you get the funds for more police? — you’re efforts have been somewhere indistinguishably between half-hearted & dim-witted. Where you have tried to act at all, at last night’s press conference & tonight’s embarrassingly coy cat & mouse with the GA, you’ve ended up only stalling.

Do you know what would’ve been classy on your part? Just an idea: coming down to the candlelight vigil & owning up to what your police force did. We took our lumps, you take yours. I promise you, those boos and hisses you just heard, they hurt a lot less than the tear gas and rubber bullets your police force fired at us. Perhaps you might reconsider your retreat, regroup like we did in the streets of your fair city, and give it another try. We will be here a while.

Yes. it will be difficult to sell a crowd on your sincerity at this point, but that’s just how honesty & dignity sometimes works. Your avoidance at every turn thus far explains why every shred of yours is fading in our eyes daily. How are they looking from your vantage point, I wonder? Will your next Facebook status update us on this, or will we need to wait for another statement on city stationary?

Looking forward to your response,

But, oh, there is, there has to be, I think, something being said in those groans.

there may be nothing more isolating than an intimacy shared

Dear                     ,

Yes, you are probably right. You wonder if what I’ve written is in fact a poem, and this is perhaps a valid question. While there is surely more to poetry than versification, it remains for me poetry’s most significant distinction. Indeed, I’m not sure that I wouldn’t even recoil at the idea of taking nearly any piece of prose worth its salt & breaking it into verse — presto! poetry! Well, maybe. Some prose works better visually & conceptually broken apart than others. But this is concerned only with whether such prose made poetry “works,” not whether or not it is in fact, nevertheless, poetry, bad as it might be. There are other very important differences, of course, not least being the verbal economy of poetry, where even the most indefinite of articles, and those most superfluous of “that”s, seem to change everything absolutely.

But it is the visual element of language being torn asunder — a visual element made verbal, when done correctly — all those visual pauses, sensory hiccups — this is what most appeals and appalls me concerning poetry. Why, that is, I can only ever flirt with it. A coy kiss on the sly most often, a parenthetical couplet or a hyphenated ejaculation, with only the occasional and most clandestine of full-blown affairs. If I may stick my toe, but only that, slightly deeper into the metaphor: poetry is, for me, more prostitute than mistress. But I like to think I tip well.

That is a good point, yes, re: how the presence of another — particularly during sex — can so often give rise to the realization that one is alone. Is this due, I wonder, to the indistinguishability of “us,” the being so close that even the most individual of fluids, not to mention, yes, breathing, become “ours,” no longer mine? This seems counter-intuitive, but there may be nothing more isolating than an intimacy shared — a profound sundering, not unlike poetry, from the only self, our own, that we thought we could take for granted. The friend who sent to me the photo said that on the print she had purchased there was a line, the specific wording I’ve since forgotten, that went something like: “The last thing I said to you was don’t leave me here.” That was the gist, I believe. Which, as I think about it, doesn’t at all undercut the point you’re making. It could, yes; but it also, in a far more interesting way, could make it more psychologically revealing and/or intense. Not least because it introduces an awareness of time into the very tangible space of the image.

The bruise to which you refer I thought was a birthmark. What’s interesting is that I hadn’t even considered the possibility that it was a bruise, and now that possibility (if not necessity) seems so obvious. What you say, re: the bruise is very much in line with the fairly enigmatic thing I said in the piece, poem or not, about reciprocity. Sensuality, or at least eroticism, if there is a distinction, seems to me defined in some sense by a give-and-take, a participation that blurs those boundaries of ownership of deed & even of body. Some have said that this speaks to the inherent narcissism of all sexual desire — the looking for me in every other, sex as a stand-in for masturbation — and while I’m sympathetic with this idea on some level, because the loneliness of intimacy can at times be quite debilitating, I also think it  risks conceding something important in the process.

Sex as exorcism. Yes yes yes. Who, after all, has not been there? And yet, desire being what it is, it seems either that we tend to do a bad job of this exorcism or there are far too many demons — they are Legion, we’re told — than partners or partnerships.

Yours,