May 30, 2010
110_TxtFile: The Search Begins
_Now that school is over, and the real world is looming, it is time to begin the search for the elusive Writing Internship.
_First up? Gregg Wilhelm’s City Lit Project. City Lit is dedicated to spreading literature, literacy and culture around the greater Baltimore area. With a recently added publishing format, Gregg really is coming up in the world.
_City Lit sponsors and advertises reading events, book fests and writer’s resources for all the litophiles in the Land of Pleasant Living. They’re also a non-profit, which means they can donate wine to events. So they’re very popular.
_And so, having applied, Kid here is waiting to hear back to see if he can be a part of the City Lit team. What will he do? Will he work in the publishing department editing manuscripts, turning writing raw material into literary gold? Will he work in the marketing department and sing the praises of those pieces of literary gold to all who need to hear? We will see!
_Oh the excitement is killing us. Stay tuned for updates and make sure to check out the City Lit site for resources and announcements on reading events in Charm City.
_NOTE: Unrelated, but also cool, we are currently working on getting proper webhosting. Not that we don’t like WordPress (thanks for the support, WP!), but we want to be thedigitalscene.com the end. We will keep you updated on that as well.
- Kid
April 5, 2010
109_TxtFile: An Open Letter to Amazon.com
_Dear Amazon.com,
_First, allow us to say that we love you. You have risen from an easy place to buy books online to the Wal-Mart of the internet, selling everything from books and movies to repair parts for household appliances. Also, you released the Kindle, the world’s first reliable e-book. It is a quick and easy product that can hold an entire bookshelf worth of literature in an object that is about the same size, although thinner, than most newly published hardcover books.
_However, your recent ad campaign for the Kindle has us concerned. The ad campaign consists of two very cute stop-motion videos that can be found at Commercial 1 and Commercial 2 respectively. We have no problem with the makeup of the majority of these commercials. Like we said, they are cute and fun to watch.
_We do have an issue with the text at the end of the commercials in question and it would be very easy to fix. We would like you to add in the word “download” so that instead of “Books in 60 Seconds” the final text reads “Download Books in 60 Seconds.” One of the major marketing points of the Kindle is that it is possible for Kindle users to download books at incredibly high speeds (i.e. 60 seconds) at any location where there is a wireless connection. Sitting at the airport waiting for a flight and you suddenly get the urge to re-read Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird? No problem, just download it!
_The text at the end of the commercial reads as if the entire book can be read in 60 seconds. While a good book tends to fly by, it certainly would take longer than 60 seconds.
_This wording bothers us because it reads to us as an endorsement of readers turning into what the BBC called “digital goldfish”. Any reader who reads for fun knows that books can take time to read, but that that is part of the joy. Unlike twenty-two minute long sitcoms or five minute songs, a book is not completely wrapped up in one sitting. It leaves the reader thinking, contemplating and wondering about what will happen next for the span of hours, days or, if it happens to be War and Peace, weeks.
_Similarly, it gives anyone viewing the commercials above the impression that books should only take 60 seconds to process. In the afterword to his sci-fi classic Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury discussed how that work was, ironically, censored heavily as it passed into the hands of various school districts and text book anthologies. One of the major themes of that novel, and a point that the stranger-than-fiction censorship of that novel in the afterword drives home, is that education cannot happen efficiently if we are so willing to cut our reading down into chokable pieces. A book cannot, and should not, be swallowed like a pill. It takes time to chew and digest.
_Do we think your Kindle commercials are going to bring about the lawless, dystopian future that Bradbury talked about? Of course not. But when it comes to encouraging people to read closely, fully and satisfyingly, we need all the help we can get. And so we will repeat our request: please change the ending text of your commercials to read “Download Books in 60 Seconds” so as not to encourage short attention spans, but rather to highlight one of the major selling points of your product.
_Thank you for reading, Amazon.com, and keep up the good work.
_Sincerely, The Digital Scene
March 22, 2010
108_Veronica
Recently I just finished reading Mary Gaitskill’s 2005 novel Veronica. I’m writing about it now because it’s been a long time since I remember wanting to give a book a standing ovation. It’s one of those books.
_I won’t waste time talking about how beautiful it is, because Francine Prose already did that for Slate Magazine. But I want to talk about why I think it’s important.
_A lot of our favorite authors speak about the effects of a person’s secret passions on their otherwise “normal” lives. John Cheever comes to mind, especially his forward to The Stories of John Cheever in which he remarks that reading through them is also retracing his discovery and shock at the darker passions those around him hid.
_However, Veronica takes that one step further. Gaitskill isn’t content to merely look at the effects of secret passions and frustrations, but to expose them to the naked eye. It is not enough for her to have her narrator, Allison, a naive model. She has Allison dissect her own naivety and desire with a sharp scalpel. It is not enough for Gaitskill to show us the wreck of Allison’s parents’ marriage. She shows us every jealous twitch on her mother’s face, every silent moment of fury that passes behind her father’s eyes.
_The intense level of introspection might seem daunting, but eventually it allows Allison, and the reader, reading through her, a space of purity and release. By the time Veronica is over, there is no clouded vision. Everything is seen clearly and in that clarity comes, if not hope, than at least release.
_So why is this important? Our society, especially the internet generation, is one that has been perpetually concerned with disorders and their medications. As the spheres of psychology and psycho-pharmacology have expanded, it has become easy for us to see our behaviors as symptoms of pervasive, life-long disorders that require extensive psychological and psycho pharmacological treatment.
_In February, Newsweek published a front- page article about the realities of anti-depressants. Their conclusion? Anti-depressants don’t help us. So where then do we turn for a cure?
_Veronica is a book that stays away from medical cures. As the titular character is infected with AIDS, it is a book that cannot rely on medicine if we are to take it seriously. It is a book about characters that are looking for connections and love in a world devoid of both. It is only by peeling the layers back until the very core of the characters are exposed to the sun that those connections can be found.
_As a society, we like to use our books and TV shows as empty vessels that we can fill with our own fears and anxieties. The problems of the characters become our own problems, and when they are resolved, we share in that. Veronica is not that. Veronica is a full and complete thing, not something that we transfer our problems into, but rather something that, through its unflinching look at itself, transfers its release and cure onto us.
- Kid
December 23, 2009
100_College Life
Happy 100 Posts , dear Digital Scene! [I would normally take time to gloat that I beat Kid to the 100th post, but I'm itching to get down to business here]
Reflecting back on my semester abroad, I realize that I missed a very important event back in the states. A defining event in American history that could have shaped me in a myriad of ways, that could have contributed to my growth of a college student.
It would be MTV’s reality series, “College Life”
I am a sucker for reality TV, unlike anyone you’ve ever known. Seriously, if you think you love reality TV, I love it more. I’ll watch Rock of Love, Real Housewives of [insert your city/state here], Real World, New York, Clean House, Say Yes to the Dress, Run’s House, America’s Best Dance Crew… you name it, I’ve seen it. My real obsessions lie with a few particular shows, but I’m not really that picky when it comes down to it.
So “College Life.” I’m living it, Kid’s living it, a lot of you are living or have lived it. It’s pretty freaking insane, right? MTV knows that, so while I was traveling the Outback on a kangaroo, they aired a 6-part reality special called “College Life.” Now, we all know that reality tv isn’t really ‘reality’ (what?!), but what makes this show so cool is that there’s no film crew, no microphones, no script. 5 college kids get their own cameras and document their own lives – whatever they see fit. They record video diaries, fights, parties, doing homework, getting wasted, crying over boys, everything. I admit that the ‘casting’ is pretty cliche – there’s the Christian virgin, the hard-core party boy, the Frat brother, the indie/alternative guy, and the super smart straight A girl, but there’s something somewhat identifiable within each of them. Or maybe that’s just me being… quint-polar?
Anyways, it’s amazing. And totally addictive.
I love watching other people live their lives. Sick, right? I know, but whatever. Not that I don’t live my own, but I’ve found that the best way for me to relax and get out of my own head and my own life troubles is to watch someone go through their own. Strange, but true. But more than that, it makes half of me desperately wish that I’d had a camera to record my college life and a faithful MTV audience to watch, but makes the other half of me grateful to all of the Gods out there that no one has any record of some of the shit I’ve done.
But most of all, it makes me nostalgic. These freshman, these itty bitty freshman and all their ‘firsts’ – first time throwing up in a dorm bathroom, first frat party, first bitch fight, first bout of food poisoning from cafeteria food. Makes me want to do it again, different this time. And kind of makes me anxious to get back to school – to get back to my life and try to do things different and (pathetically?) relive some of my freshman days.
I feel like I’m getting old. And I’m only 21 for God’s sake. But it feels like it. Where did all this time go?
December 14, 2009
99_I Solemnly Swear to Write For the Rest of My Life
So, last week, Kid and I got e-mails, calling for a ‘conference’ with our Short Story Writing professor.
Uh-oh.
Getting e-mails about a ‘conference’, an e-mail that doesn’t disclose the details or purpose for the conference, is almost always a sign of trouble ahead.
And given the kind of trouble Kid and I have sometimes gotten ourselves into, it was more surprising that it took one of our professors this long to call a conference.
So ‘conference day’ came last Tuesday. I met with SSWP (short story writing professor, for short) and took a seat across from him, prepared for a reprimanding on one of many things: a mysteriously missing assignment, my inability to read with a Ukrainian accent (long story), my inappropriate habit of making side comments to Kid during class time, and/or my piece-of-crap workshop story that I tried to pass off as something I worked hard on, but actually threw together at the last minute because of a serious case of writer’s block and absolutely loathe.
However, I was delighted to find myself proven wrong (one of very few times, I might add). What SSWP wanted was to talk to me about writing internships and to find out what exactly I was going to do with the rest of my life (WHY does everyone keep asking that question?!?!) and how writing was going to fit into that.
He was rather disappointed when I told him that as soon as I had that diploma in my hand, I was flying to Australia as fast as my arms could flap and that I wasn’t really interested in any writing jobs that required me to write what someone else wanted me to write… aka assignments. I don’t do assignments, I explained to him. I do whatever I want to do. Boo yah.
By the end of the ‘conference,’ he still had no idea what I was getting at – that I wanted to keep writing after graduation, but that I wasn’t necessarily pursuing a career as a writer, instead choosing to do other things with my life and write on the side, and that my writing wasn’t going to be technical or for any other purpose that helping myself and maybe helping other people… or at least giving them something entertaining to read.
And that’s when I thought of our friend, NG, and that’s when I gushed to the end of the conference about her and her blog and my desire to someday grow up and write like her. And that’s when I thought of the most brilliant thing she ever wrote – the advice she gave to all of us that I think will best explain the insanity that is my plan for life to SSWP.
So, SSWP, if you’re reading this, here is the advice that I’m taking from our dear friend NG, and maybe this will help you better understand that I’m not going to give up writing!
December 7, 2009
98_Mixtape Mondays: Pandora
_As we sit here researching and writing 15 – 20 page papers on Hamlet and Oscar Wilde, two thoughts occur to us: “Get us out of this fucking library” and “Thank God for Pandora.”
_Pandora.com is an online radio station that makes use of the Musical Genome Project. The MGP is something that, once you hear about it, you think “why didn’t they think of this years ago?” The MGP gives bands and songs different characteristics, such as “hard-rock influences” or “heavy bass beats” or “layered vocals.” So you choose a band or song and then when that first song is done playing, Pandora starts playing songs that have either the same or similar characteristics. So all you need to do is type in the name of your favorite band and sit back while Pandora plays an entire playlist of that band and bands just like it. It’s like the “If you liked this, you’ll love ___ ” part of Amazon.com put into practice.
_And since we don’t have to run through playlists picking and choosing songs that we like, since Pandora is doing that for us, we’re free to sit back and work our way through these papers. Which we’d actually rather not do. Damnit Pandora, we can’t help but get to work. Maybe we don’t like Pandora after all…
_Keep listening and we’ll see you next week.
- Kid
November 15, 2009
92_TxtFile: A Word of Praise
_It’s time that we honored one of the greatest enablers of higher education through reading: the college bookstore. That’s right. Do you remember when you were in grade school or high school and they gave you those long lists of books to choose from to read? We remember, and we also remember wondering where we could find such a collection.
_It turns out that the best place to find a comprehensive collection of all that is deemed classic by the Academy is none other than your college bookstore. That’s right, walk in, pretend that you are an English Literature major and grab all that you can from the shelves. Or, even better, log on to your old college account, look up some reading lists and order them all online, thus getting a student discount if you order at the beginning of the semester.
_The fact of the matter is, the classics are the classics for a reason. We read books that we hate in high school to understand how truly good they are in college, and that process continues throughout our educations. Sometimes it takes us a bit to realize that we still read Hawthorne or Shakespeare for a reason: they still have something to add to our understanding of the world.
_So, instead of trolling around the internet for the Next Best Thing all day – which we completely condone, don’t get us wrong – make sure to head to your local college bookstore for a Complete Works of Oscar Wilde or a collection of Gerard Manly Hopkins’ poetry and letters. You never know when you’ll need to bring it up at a party.
- Kid
November 8, 2009
90_TxtFile: Subject Matter
_First, a big thank you to The Sexretary for sharing her first Creative Non-Fiction assignment, the one I liked so much. Also, an equally big thank you to her for not telling the Halloween story. That’s for another day.
_But the title of her post made us think about our subject matter. The lady that teaches the Advanced Fiction Seminar that The Sexretary and I are taking keeps telling me that there’s too much drinking in my writing. I suppose this might be true, but I also suppose that if I played bridge every night, that’s what I would write about.
_But it’s a fair point. Sometimes it’s hard to realize the line between where we dictate the subject matter and where it dictates us. There does come a time when we, as writers, start doing things simply to have something to write about. And that’s bad. So this week we’re here to remind you all that subject matter is simply something you write about, not something that rules your life. If that’s the case, you need to reevaluate your life as a writer.
- Kid
November 5, 2009
89_Apparently, I’ve Always Liked to Write About Alcohol, Sex and Drugs
I know, I know. I’m a day late (and more than a few dollars short, after the celebrating that went on this past weekend). But I’m here and have for you something both exciting and embarrassing:
My story from Creative Non-Fiction.
The story that brought me to meet Kid.
The story that moved Kid so much that he was compelled by some unknown emotional force to ask me to write for The Digital Scene.
The story that led to Halloween 2008, when we… well, never mind.
Bottom line, this story led to a lot of interesting, embarrassing, awkward, hysterical, and insert-your-adjective-here. It’s kind of the story that got me started. So here it is. I like to think that I’ve grown as a writer and that my pieces don’t sound nearly as juvenile and sophomoric as this, so don’t be too hasty to judge. Actually, do judge. In fact, send us your story – the story that got you started… that way we can judge you too and we’ll all be even and feel better about ourselves. Ahh.
[Author's note: being that I was not yet acquainted with Kid and lacked his literary wisdom and ingenuity (oooh I bet he's loving this...), I came up empty for a title]
If she was a color in the 64-count deluxe Crayola Crayon box, she would be Cornflower blue. A Paul Newman blue. That kind of sky blue that is so unreal, it makes you think you’re looking through a pair of tinted sunglasses. Blue. She looks blue and feels blue.
In her bottom desk drawer, hidden under the old history notebooks and math folders and long forgotten college applications was her version of a Bucket List. At the top of the paper, in her careful cursive, was printed in blue ink “To Do Before I Die.” The rest of the page was empty.
—–
If she was another color in the 64-count deluxe Crayola Crayon box, she would be Unmellow yellow. A sunshiney yellow. The kind of yellow that is almost obnoxious in its bright fluorescent hue. Yellow. She looks yellow and feels yellow.
Her long straight hair used to be yellow, that unmellow yellow. Yellow hair that didn’t stay yellow for long. She’s fueled by a fear of remaining the same, of staying one way for too long, and the manic need for change was what pulsed through her veins as she tried to become someone else under a coat of Easy Dark Brown # 4, haphazardly drowning the blonde and coloring in a new picture of herself.
—-
If she was yet another color in the 64-count deluxe Crayola Crayon box, she would be Wild Strawberry pink. A pretty pink. The kind of pink that reminds you of a lipstick stained mouth. Pink. She looks pink and feels pink.
Ironically, she’s allergic to strawberries. But it’s not like she can escape them, what with the strawberry birthmark staining her back in a pink blossom. It is something to be loathed and loved and forgotten and reminded of. It will always be there, but like other parts of her person, she can sometimes manage to forget it’s there, marring her skin.
—–
October 18, 2009
85_TxtFile: Writers, the New Rockstars
_It’s a dream of all serious writers to be, in some ways, famous. It’s a nice level of fame, because people tend to know your name, but not your face, so you can still go out to your favorite restaurants without being swamped. Still, there’s a hankering in a lot of us to attain the same level of panties-being-thrown-on-stage fame as rockstars.
_So when my brother, Lee Future of Literature Is Not Deadheaded out to the Left Coast for San Fransisco’s Lit Quake, I did not know that I would end up as an accomplice to the idea that writers can be as cool as rockstars.
_It started around 2:30 in the morning when Lee called me. I was still awake, even though I had to work at 7:15 AM, and I was very confused as to why my brother was on the other end. It turns out that he was out in a bar in San Francisco getting drunk with none other than Craig Cleveneger, author of The Contortionist’s Handbook and Dermaphoria. I was instantly jealous. Which is why I probably hung up on my brother, but honestly, I wanted to be out at cool bars in sunny San Fransisco drinking with my favorite underground(ish) authors. How rockstar is that? And I know they’re weren’t sitting around some stuffy parlor talking droll about literature. Why? Because Lee told me the next day (when I attempted to call him while he was destroyed hungover to make up for calling me at 2:30 in the morning) that they were talking about kittens and bacon.
_Yes, Craig Clevenger loves kittens. He also loves bacon. At some point during the night that he and my brother got drunk together, and after an undisclosed amount of alcohol, he was reported saying that the best thing in the world would be a bacon-wrapped kitten. Not necessarily to eat, but just to have.
_So, if any of you out there are going to do as I’m doing and start hording facts about Craig Clevenger the same way that teenage girls horde facts about the Jonas brothers, start with these two intense loves of his:
_ _ Kittens
_ _ Bacon
And work from there.
- Kid
