We Are Moving Into Our New Old Home

Hullo kind readers of our humble blog,

We have moved all our posts to our homepage (dotdotdash.org), and for convenience's sake we will probably only update there from now on. It just might be easier for you too, reader, since everything you could want to know about dotdotdash will be right there where you read. I say this today because I've written a new post addressing the turning of the year, and how things are new and full of promise, which is as appropriate as any first post in a new place can be. Well, what are you waiting for? Go, go, go check out our new and shiny website!

Warm regards,
Sj Finch
for dotdotdash

Composing Writing

Most writers will tell you very definitively whether they can or can't write to music. Those that say they can will, most of the time, find that music very important and may have entire playlists dedicated to various current works or at least a selection they tend to play more than others. Some even have different lists for short stories, poetry, essays, creative non fiction and so on. However those that say they can't usually mean more than just they don't find it easy. Rather, they frequently express the need to expunge even background radio music or tuneful whistling (tuneless whistling gets on your nerves whether you like writing to music or not).

So this issue being themed Jukebox we at dotdotdash are intrigued by what camp you fall into. Do you have to have the right music and find the ideas flow better if you do? Or do you find it an annoyance beyond all others? Then, if you do write to music, what kind of music do you write to? If someone out there writes rhyming poetry to death metal though that is just plain awesome...

Rosalind for dotdotdash
Image by [nati]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/natita2/

Moving Day

I'm in the middle of moving house. It's a period of transition and I have mixed feelings. I'm excited to be moving on...but already I miss the place that I'm leaving. I've lived here for five years and have grown very attached to its spacious rooms and convenient location. I'll miss the little IGA down the road. The familiar winding streets that I know off by heart. The lounge room I've shared with my Xbox... and other friends. I'll always remember it for the freedom it afforded me. It was the first place I moved into after leaving home. It was my first love. We've had adventures together this house and I. There were parties, first dates, Xbox marathons and caffeinated late nights completing assignments all held within its walls. I nursed it back to health when the air conditioner was full of bees and repaired the towel rack when the fixture came loose. I feel the churning of my stomach and know deep down I'm betraying a friend. The thought of leaving my comfy nook to for someone else to stylise and rearrange sickens me.

But aside from that, what am I supposed to do with all my stuff? Where did it all come from? Only now that I’m disassembling my room do I realise how much junk I’ve accumulated. It’s like layers of paperwork and clothing have slowly built up in the way that particles of broken asteroids and other material gradually coat the Earth and increase its size. Knick knacks and thingamabobs have snuck onto my shelves and occupied my cupboards. I feel like an archaeologist sifting through it all. There’s a complete history of movies I’ve watched in a fat wad of used ticket stubs. Digging through my draws I realise I’ve become ‘that guy’ who owns a crap load of tacky t-shirts... although at what point that happened I’ve been unable to pinpoint.

I’m now standing before a mound of heavy boxes and I realise that my life has been quantified. This is the sum of my parts. These are the things I need on a daily basis, the things that occupy my time. It is what I wear, what I read, what I keep as mementos and what I use to operate out in the world. A lot of it is worthless and worn but these things are me. By taking this stuff with me, I am admitting I need these things in order to continue the life I’m accustomed to. Now’s would be a good time to edit, to reshape who I am and what I own. Time to make a fresh start. But I’ll probably just take all my baggage with me...and curse at it for being so damn heavy.


Luke
for dotdotdash

image found at http://babyccinokids.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/moving-house.jpg

NaNoWriMo! Extreme Noveling!

Nanowrimo, for those who haven't heard, stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's an annual challenge that was begun by Chris Baty from San Francisco in 1999, and has since become an international writing event. People from around the world huddle around their humble laptops and clicketyclack out the 50 000 words required for the challenge, staving off the various quotidian elements of life - the jobs, the socialising, the family, the sunlight - for a chance of that congratulatory electronic certificate that says 'You did Nanowrimo, and that makes you okay!'. (On that international note, it really should be Innanowrimo nowadays, but that's a little less catchy.) I love Nanowrimo not because it forces people to produce tonnes of unpublishable writing. It gets people used to the idea of it, the strain and emptybellied stress of it. It's as much about the journey as the challenge. So there's a tonne of helpful content on the site (here) about writer's block, plotting and writing endurance.

And if you don't have any idea of what to write, then that's okay. The offical slogan of Nanowrimo is 'No plot? No problem!'. So what are you waiting for? Get off your figurative arse and put your figurative fingers to work! Tap those keys, squeeze that pen, take your writerly self out for a mindwalk.

Now to the point of this blog post. I have wanted to win Nanowrimo since I heard about it five years ago, and I have decided that this must be the year. I have not yet started however, and it's almost the middle of the month...

So what I'm proposing is EXTREME NANOWRIMO! Writing 50 000 words in fifteen days. It's going to be tough, unusual and unnecessary, but it's going to be FUN. And I want you, any of you, to join me on the quest for novelism. It will start on Monday, and we could maybe meet for coffee and sleep deprivation stories that are related to the stories we struggle with.

Also, the above picture is a reference to Arrested Development, the television show. Michael, a real estate company manager, promises the board that he will build a new model home in six weeks, but his brother Gob (pictured) in a spectacularly misguided effort at oneup-manship declares that he will build it in three weeks. Then since Gob is a magician by trade pennies suddenly appear in his hand and he throws them on the boardroom table. So come do the EXTREME challenge and I will throw pennies at you.

I will also update this blog entry as I continue on my journey.


Sj Finch
for dotdotdash
and extreme noveling

Compression of the Narrative

We live in the age of 'more is better'. We produce more, we consume more and we are constantly striving to increase the rates of both. The way we understand stories is becoming increasingly complex as we can rely on a wealth of shorthand tropes to communicate messages already layered with a history of meanings in order to expedite the story telling process. Internet communication is abbreviated to extremes and movie and TV set a narrative pace that can leave the older generation exhausted and struggling to keep up.In short, we are telling more stories and can do so at a quicker pace than ever.

So what effect does this have on narrative structure and how we consume it?

I told a friend the other day that I had recently watched two seasons of Dexter (24 episodes - nearly 24 hours of footage) within a matter of weeks. This is not how the network intends you to view it, but it is an increasingly popular way to consume the content. Ten years ago, these episodes would be digested over the course of 24 weeks (plus a couple month break between seasons). Each episode would have it's 'water-cooler' moment for discussion with friends and fellow enthusiasts. The narrative trajectory could be pondered and dissected in a lengthy way. Watching a season in one hit means that the water-cooler effect is now to discuss the season as a whole. The season becomes one large episode for discussion and dissection (pun intended when referring to Dexter). I have consumed an entire year's worth of production within the space of a few weeks. In doing so I have compressed the narrative (and the time it takes to tell it) and bypassed the digestion of each individual episode with insight from others. Does the thrill of consuming this narrative quickly mean that I cheat myself from interjecting my own thoughts into the narrative journey? Am I allowing myself to be dumbed down under the weight of multiple rapid rate TV shows? I know I enjoy the rapid rate at which I can absorb the narrative and the pace of the narrative when consumed in this way is exhilarating. But I'm lead to wonder what affect telling more stories at a faster pace will have on our understanding of narrative. Surely the common narrative will have to contain more information to support this trend, but where does that leave the writer?

Although this 'narrative compression' will occur differently across different media, this has me wondering about the impact such consumption will have on future narratives. Is more better? And what are the implications for the writer?

Luke for dotdotdash

Zine Spotlights #3

Bullshit Movies
Tristan Fidler
$?, available from ??? (See sheepish footnote)
Or read more at bs-movies.blogspot.com

This is a zine for so-bad-it’s-good movie lovers. It consists of ingeniously written synopses of ridiculous action movies like Blind Fury, Ghost Rider and McBain (yes, there’s another McBain besides this one) – movies so bizarre, misogynistic, xenophobic and terribly scripted that their existence blows my mind, really. You’d think these kinds of movies are a thing of the past, but this zine isn’t limited to corny eighties and early nineties films. For example, Taken was released in 2008, and just reading about it in Bullshit Movies and Wikipedia makes me so uneasy that I might just derail this review to talk about its problematic plot. Basically, Liam Neeson’s daughter, against the wishes of her father, travels to Paris and gets kidnapped by Albanian sex traders and is saved by trigger-happy daddy just in time because she’s a ‘highly valuable virgin’ and thus the last girl to be sold. (Meanwhile, her fellow kidnapped and presumably non-virginal friend dies.) WTF? You wouldn’t think that ‘awesomely funny’ and ‘awesomely depressing’ would be next-door neighbours, but they are in Bullshit Movies. This zine also contains pretty cool illustrations of Nicolas Cage, Christopher Walken and other action heroes.

Sheepish footnote: Immediately after writing this review I discovered that not only did the person from whom I borrowed this zine not remember the price of it, but that this zine is probably out of print. But just because you can’t buy this zine doesn’t mean I can’t review it, right? Right?



Not a zine review but a response to ‘The Bubble – zines and constructive criticism’

The October issue of Sticky Institute’s excellent newsletter has some interesting thoughts on the practice of reviewing zines. ‘I enjoy a good discussion about what makes zines great,’ writes Candace. ‘But it pains me that many people I come across only seem to want to discuss the good stuff.’ In her short article, ‘The Bubble – zines and constructive criticism’ (a reference to 30 Rock which I thoroughly appreciated), Candace questions the general resistance of zinesters to criticise other zines, a resistance which seems ‘ironically conservative’ given that zines themselves, often, are all about fostering criticism and debate.

Candace’s thoughts reminded me of when we first decided to talk about zines on this blog. I remember thinking that I’m not sure if I could publicly express negative sentiments about a zine. It was a conscious decision to call these posts ‘Zine Spotlights’ rather than ‘Zine Reviews’ – to create a space for pointing out zines that we thought made good company. My reluctance to write ‘reviews’ also sprang from not knowing very much about zine culture, its unspoken etiquette. Sometimes I still find myself filled with the same nervous ache of the first time I sold my zines, even though they are just frivolous things, nowhere near as serious and heartfelt as many others, nor engaging in the kind of ideological criticism as the aforementioned Bullshit Movies does. I don’t think zines, or any text, should live in a protective bubble. I definitely agree with Candace that problematic elements of a zine deserve discussion. But I guess when zinemakers are reviewing other zinemakers, the vulnerability is just too familiar. Candace is calling for ‘reasonable feedback, aimed at seasoned zinesters’, to which the newsletter’s editor slipped in a parenthetical remark: ‘How do you know who’s a seasoned zinester and who’s a newbie? Should that even be an issue?’

I don’t know if the giving or receiving on feedback should rest on one’s level of expertise as a zinester, but I think that you don’t have to look further than to the individual zine itself to determine what kind of criticism it can withstand. A lot of zines I’ve read have this particular intimacy about them, like you’re being led into somebody’s house, and it would be poor form to start criticising the décor. Others seem to invite dialogue, disagreement even; some zines are openly critical and will justifiably generate a response. Some zines are just play; others veer into mean-spirited territory. There needs to be tact, as Candace mentions. Not all criticism is vital to put out there, but sometimes it really is necessary.

I really appreciate that Sticky’s newsletter not only reviews zines but talks about the ethics and practice of reviewing. As a sporadic and inexperienced zinester, I am a still little bit resistant to saying outright bad things about other zines – hopefully not unreasonably so. Although I’m still chewing over how to define what my actual position is, this article has prompted me to renew my perspectives on zine criticism, for which Candace has my gratitude.


Elizabeth Tan
for dotdotdash

Freedom and Franzen

Jonathan Franzen has had buzz from the very beginning. His debut novel The Corrections was that unique blend of page-turning storytelling and bona fide jaw-dropping prose. His two novels since have been received more quietly. While I have not read Strong Motion or either of his non-fiction works, I did prior to the release of Freedom read The Twenty-Seventh City, a St. Louis-set novel whose writing embraced the postmodern aesthetic with more loose ends and a cacophony of characters who seem to multiply and fracture as the work progresses. The story in The Twenty-Seventh City doesn’t unfold so much as collapse. All in all, if The Corrections was a work of art ready for mass consumption, The Twenty-Seventh City was a work for the elite, those in-the-know and a work bound to disappoint the chain bookstore shoppers who wanted a cleanly started, cleanly finished page-turner.

Which brings us to Freedom – the novel whose back cover incorrectly (and tellingly) identifies it as Franzen’s second novel, rather than his fourth. Freedom is the literary though not the literal follow-up to The Corrections, and like Franzen’s hit debut, Freedom is a story of average middle-class middle Americans muddling through life. His sentences track the minutiae of their lives, the consumption of things and the piling up of days that define contemporary life. The story is tight and complete, a read as satisfying as it is insightful.

Like The Corrections the narration is in close third person, shifting between characters, so that we are drawn into an individual’s world and shown their perceptions before moving to another character. The three core characters form a modern-day love triangle. The main character, whose therapeutic memoirs are close to half the novel, is Patty Berglund, a former basketball star turned housewife prone to depression. Her eventual husband Walter Berglund is an all-around great guy with a preoccupation with overpopulation who succeeds at everything but lacks that one central ingredient for success in America – charisma. Rounding out the love triangle is Richard Kern, Walter’s college roommate and Patty’s lifelong crush, a musician cliché who stumbles onto a hit record after a tryst with Patty. The sex and love of Freedom is 100% new millennia, devoid of Victorian frothing, and rooted (pardon the pun) more in boredom and narcissism than any romantic ideals.

The central triangle of characters each has a match in the next generation, a clever and well-employed device that shows how this particular story is interesting because it is not unique: the same dramas that play out between Patty, Walter and Richard will repeat with the Berglund’s own children as they pass from childhood to college and eventually into adulthood. Patty and Walter’s son Joey (my favorite character) is in many ways like Richard. Joey’s girlfriend Connie is much like Patty. Patty and Walter’s daughter Jessica is similar to Walter. Of course, these three don’t form a love triangle themselves (the novel is not that clean), but they do seem fated to play out the same roles as their pairs in love triangles of their own making. The pairings come down to an immutable characteristic that doesn’t so much shape as handicap the particular character to a predictable reaction. Patty and Connie are prone to depression, to an obsessive need for someone else that leaves them always short of their own potential. Richard and Joey are charismatic, floating through life with ease, successful unintentionally, never trying too hard or taking on the problems of those they leave behind. Walter and Jessica do everything right, but are never the characters you want to read about (because readers, like everyone else, inevitably fall prey to the charisma of Richard and Joey).

Perhaps the greatest criticism that can be given to Franzen is that as much as he can empathize and develop a host of characters, his style is incredibly rigid. No matter what character is telling the story, the writer is always Franzen. Unlike other masters of the close third person, including a personal favourite William Faulkner, Franzen’s voice never varies (perhaps, another reason he sets his novels in America’s heartland, a place where the sameness of voices represents the sameness of middle America’s suburban dream). He is a writer for a generation brought up watching stories on screens. He sets the scene, masters the lighting, the angle, the close-ups, the landscapes, but never quite the voices, which are all scripted beautifully, but never sounded out in their pockmarked humanity. This particular blind spot in Franzen’s work is also responsible for another of his strengths – the ability to write male and female characters equally well.

Freedom may not be perfect, but it is still Franzen at his character-driven, story-telling best and the book, even in the early days of its release, is proving popular with counterculture hipsters, critics and Oprah bookclubbers alike. Franzen’s writing style and ability to so fully immerse himself in the lives he creates means that the details and surface story is a great read in and of itself, but the novel’s literary greatness comes from so much of the dysfunction that is unspoken or implied or left unresolved, such as Patty’s homoerotic obsessive relationship with her college best friend Eliza and Patty’s quasi-incestuous relationship with her son Joey. Whether these relationships actually turn sexual is doubtful (in the case of Eliza we are explicitly told it didn’t) is largely unimportant. What is important is Franzen’s ability to imply and weave into his wholesome white-bread character such subversive impulses that the characters themselves are scarcely aware of their own base nature. To the discerning reader the base nature that lies between the lines of Franzen’s detailed prose further rounds out and brings to life some of the best-developed characters in the English language.

All in all, Freedom is a novel very much deserving of the fanfare with which it has been received, and time will tell if it becomes, as tipped by some, the novel of our generation.

Megan Smith