Technology is a topic I often touch on in this blog* because first, it’s directly relevant to my book in-progress on Far West Texas, and second, the digital revolution we’re all living through is so dizzyingly, all-at-once enchanting and consternating. Where is this all taking us? Mars? The Stars? Or, will we all end up like the pudding-like protagonist of E.M. Forster’s eerily prophetic short story “The Machine Stops”? How does this digital revolution connect to / echo with technological change in the past, for example, with the advent of the printed book, the telegraph, radio, telephones, cinema, television? With other technologies, from the railroads to airplanes? Or for that matter, the bow and arrow, or say, or the clock? And how is the digital revolution, in fact, or not in fact, fundamentally different from what has come before? Most importantly, how to live a human life, a good and creative life, say, this writer’s life, that is not hijacked by technological imperatives, above all, the constant pull to the glamor of the screens? (And I mean “glamor” in its original, occult sense.) So many questions… Sometimes some of the literature begins to answer them.
Doug Hill’s Not So Fast: Thinking Twice About Technology
Doug Hill’s Not So Fast: Thinking Twice About Technology. That fuzzy blurb on the cover is from Jerry Mander: “This book is the most comprehensive, provocative, and entertaining review of technological thought, expression, impact, and controversy that I have yet seen.” Yours Truly concurs.
The first and major thing I appreciated about Doug Hill’s Not So Fast is that he provides an up-to-date general overview of the literature on the history and the philosophy of technology. Francis Bacon, Henry James, Martin Heidegger, Aldous Huxley, Marshall McLuhan, Lewis Mumford, Langdon Winner, Norbert Wiener, Jacques Ellul, Ray Kurzweil, Kevin Kelly, Stewart Brand, Steve Jobs–and an army more– they’re all there. Secondly, in engaging, butter-smooth prose throughout, Hill tackles, as he quotes philosopher Albert Borgmann, “the pervasiveness and consistency of [technology’s] pattern.” I mean to say, Hill has accomplished a rare combined literary and intellectual feat.
Here’s the catalog copy for Not So Fast:
There’s a well-known story about an older fish who swims by two younger fish and asks, “How’s the water?” The younger fish are puzzled. “What’s water?” they ask.
Many of us today might ask a similar question: What’s technology? Technology defines the world we live in, yet we’re so immersed in it, so encompassed by it, that we mostly take it for granted. Seldom, if ever, do we stop to ask what technology is. Failing to ask that question, we fail to perceive all the ways it might be shaping us.
Usually when we hear the word “technology,” we automatically think of digital devices and their myriad applications. As revolutionary as smartphones, online shopping, and social networks may seem, however, they fit into long-standing, deeply entrenched patterns of technological thought as well as practice. Generations of skeptics have questioned how well served we are by those patterns of thought and practice, even as generations of enthusiasts have promised that the latest innovations will deliver us, soon, to Paradise. We’re not there yet, but the cyber utopians of Silicon Valley keep telling us it’s right around the corner.
What is technology, and how is it shaping us? In search of answers to those crucial questions, Not So Fast draws on the insights of dozens of scholars and artists who have thought deeply about the meanings of machines. The book explores such dynamics as technological drift, technological momentum, technological disequilibrium, and technological autonomy to help us understand the interconnected, interwoven, and interdependent phenomena of our technological world. In the course of that exploration, Doug Hill poses penetrating questions of his own, among them: Do we have as much control over our machines as we think? And who can we rely on to guide the technological forces that will determine the future of the planet?
I wish I’d had the foresight to take a photo of what this book looked like before its repair: the spine torn off and hanging to one side by threads. It’s the ninth edition of the “Fannie Farmer” Boston Cooking-School Cook Book published in 1951, not a valuable book in the rare book market, and this specimen less so for its decades-old gravy and butter stains. But it is a tremendously valuable book to me because it was my mother’s. I took it to my local bookbinder and, for about the price of a pair of Keds, voilà:
Restored for use by my local bookbinder.
It strikes me as curious that in all the many writers workshops and conferences I’ve attended over the years I cannot recall anyone ever even mentioning the craft of book binding. But what skill it takes to do it well! And what a difference it makes! With its repaired binding, this dear workhorse of a book has been given the dignity it well deserves.
What has this to do with a writing workshop? Two things.
First, as a writer I’ve come to realize that the quality of the book’s design, paper, and binding is immensely important, for its gives the book its presentation– like a frame for a picture or the dress for a bride– and it also gives it the sturdiness it requires to survive over time.
Second, I’ve come to believe that as a writer it matters why and how I treat my books because respect for them is respect my own endeavor. Generally speaking, I have learned to try to keep them out of the sun, I avoid eating or drinking while reading them, and I take care not to fade, fold, bump or tear any dust jackets. However, that doesn’t mean I’m ever and always fussy about my books. I’ll toss out battered old mass market paperbacks, and I often donate books. And some books I go ahead and give myself liberty to attack! I mean in a good way!
A more recent example: Doug Hill’s superb Not So Fast: Thinking Twice About Technology. When I ordered Not So Fast I guessed it would eventually become an important collector’s item, so I shelled out the clams for the University of Georgia Press first edition hardcover from bookdespository.com. Alas, when it arrived I found that the dust jacket had been badly treated (um, actually it looked like the forklift left greasy tire tracks on it). Translation: as a physical object my copy has little to zero value. Because I was so anxious to read it for my own work-in-progress however, rather than ask bookdepository.com for a replacement, I took this as a welcome opportunity to go ahead and mark it up with my notes. So: maltreated my copy may be, both in the warehouse and by my scribbles, it’s a book that is tremendously valuable to me as a working writer. (And I warmly recommend it to you, dear reader, by the way.)
I ordered the book from bookdepository.com and alas, the dust jacket arrived looking like this….
…so I gave myself permission to go ahead and mark it up. This one stays in my working library.
How do you treat your books? And why? These are questions I didn’t think to ask myself for many years. These may not be trick questions, but they are tricky questions, for they necessitate distinguishing the book as a thoughtform from the book as a physical object, and they also require self-awareness and clarity in one’s intentions, as both a reader and a writer.
WHITE DOG
The other day my copy of visual artist and writer Katherine Dunn’s latest book, White Dog, arrived. So obviously made with love and joy, White Dog is one of the most exquisite books that I have ever seen. Dear writerly readers, it is self-published. And I do not believe that any commercial publisher would have, nor could have, done justice to her vision.
UPDATE: See the Q & A with Katherine Dunn for this blog here.
MORE TO COME ON SELF-PUBLISHING
Those of you who have been following this blog well know that since early 2019 I’ve been migrating selected posts from the old Google platform. I have a batch of posts on self-publishing that I’ll be getting to in the coming weeks.
To be clear, I’m not a champion of self-publishing per se; I sincerely respect and value what a good publisher’s team (editor, copyeditor, book designer, sales reps, publicist, back office) can do. Most of my books have been published by traditional publishers or university presses, and indeed, I aim to place my recently completed collection of essays and my book in-progress with a publisher (wish me luck). But without making much effort to find a publisher (for good reason, which I go into in the relevant blog post) I self-published Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution. In addition I have self-published several Kindles, including this longform essay about the Mexican literary landscape. I remain open to the idea of self-publishing again in the future. In the post-covid economy, where we can expect smaller catalogs and fewer publishers, that may turn out to be the increasingly more realistic route. We shall see. More anon.
P.S. You can find the archive of workshop posts migrated-to-date here. Again, I offer a post for my workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing on the second Monday of every month.
I foggily recall first learning about physicist David Bohm’s ideas in an astrophysics course (yea verily, back in the Paleozoic), but my more serious (ironically) introduction to Bohm’s work came many years later when, as I was writing my memoir of Baja California, Miraculous Air, I started to experience strings of synchronicities, including encountering a work on synchronicity which went into some detail about Bohm and his ideas! The key concepts that have stayed with me over the years are the implicate order and nonlocal consciousness. More recently, I encountered Bohm’s writings again when, apropos of my book about Francisco I. Madero’s secret book, I started to to read a ways into the life and work of mystic Jiddu Krishnamurti, who, so it turned out later in his life, became Bohm’s friend and partner in an historic series of televised dialogues exploring the nature of consciousness. All of which is by way of a gravy-wavy introduction to the just-released and superb documentary “Infinite Potential,” which, thanks to the Fetzer Memorial Trust, you can watch in its entirety for free on the film’s official YouTube channel:
My writing assistant, Uliberto Quetzalpugtl, attempts to demonstrate “infinite potential.” He reports that he feels “at one” with the chair.
Welcome to this Monday’s post, dear writerly readers! As of this year, the fifth Monday of the month, when there is one, is for my newsletter, covering my publications, podcasts, selected posts from Madam Mayo, and upcoming workshops. Plus cyberflanerie.
Over the past few months, apart from waiting for the pears to ripen, I’ve mainly been working on my book on Far West Texas, and relatedly, the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project.
My writing assistants, Uliberto Quetzalpugtl and Washingtoniana Quetzalpugalotl, wondering when the pears will start to drop. So far nobody’s gotten plunked on the noggin.
Check out the new website for the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project, where you can listen to in to 21 of the projected 24 podcasts anytime, and find the transcripts as well.
Next up in the series: An interview with Bill Smith about the cactus capital of Sanderson, Texas.
SELECTEDMADAM MAYO POSTS
Writing Workshop Posts (every second Monday of the month):
In order to concentrate on writing my book I’ve taken a break from teaching this year, but I will be offering a one-hour workshop on poetic techniques for writers of fiction and narrative nonfiction at the Women Writing the West annual conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado this fall. If you’re anywhere in the area, and if your work focuses on anywhere / anything/ anyone in the US west of the Mississippi River, this might be a conference for you to consider. In particular, if you take your writing seriously, and if you’re looking to meet other writers, improve your writing skills, and to learn to pitch your work to agents, editors, and above all, help your book find its readers, I can warmly recommend this conference. I’ve participated twice now (you can read my edited transcript of a talk for the conference held in 2016 in Santa Fe here) and found it well worthwhile.
Saturday, October 17, 2020 9:10-10:10 Poetic Techniques to Power Up– C.M. Mayo
For writers of fiction and narrative nonfiction (whether biography, nature writing, or memoir), award-winning poet and writer C.M. Mayo’s workshop gives you a toolkit of specific poetic techniques you can apply immediately to make your writing more vivid and engaging for your readers. Using handouts, first we’ll cover specificity with reference to the senses, a technique, basic as it may be, that many writers tend to underutilize. Then, in supersonic fashion, we’ll zoom over alliteration; use of imagery; repetition; listing; diction drops and spikes; synesthesia; and crucially, how to work with rhythm and sound to reinforce meaning. The goal is for your writing to take an immediate step up.
Meanwhile, for my students, and anyone else interested in creative writing, I will continue to post on some aspect of craft and/or creative process here at Madam Mayo blog on the second Monday of the month.
> You can always access the archive of Madam Mayo blog workshop posts here.
Kevin Kelly offers a raft of advice, including: “Anything real begins with the fiction of what could be. Imagination is therefore the most potent force in the universe, and a skill you can get better at. It’s the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everyone else knows.”
From Robert Giron at Gival Press (back in April, which was Poetry Month):
Take a few minutes away from the trauma of the day and read some poetry. Visit & read the Poetry Month 2020 Special Bilingual (Spanish/English) Edition in ArLiJo Issue No. 135 edited by Luis Alberto Ambroggio. Featuring poets: Lucha Corpi, Raquel Salas Rivera, Naomi Ayala, Orlando Rossardi, Tina Escaja, Daisy Zamora, Isaac Goldemberg, and Luis Alberto Ambroggio. Visit: http://www.ArLiJo.com
#
Stay safe!
#
Primitive Skills guru on “never hurry, never worry”:
#
Just ‘cuz it is so cool:
(Though certainly in English we underutilize clicks, we do use them. Notice how when an American is about to inform you about something, she says, tsk? It’s so quick, it’s easy to miss.)
P.S. I also, very occasionally, send out my newsletter to subscribers via email. If you would like to receive only the emailed newsletter, just zap me an email, I’ll be delighted to add you to my list. If in addition, or instead, you’d like to sign up for the Madam Mayo blog post alerts every Monday via email, just hie on over to the sidebar (or, if you’re on an iPhone, scroll down to the end of this post) for the signup. Welcome!
“In Flyshoals, Georgia, karma is writ small enough to witness. When Doreen Swilley discovers that her boss and lover of thirty years intends to fire her to placate his dying wife, she devises a plan to steal his business from him. Her plan just might work too, if she is not thwarted by a small town’s enmeshed histories and her family’s own dark secrets. Set during the 2009 recession, The Nature of Remains rests at the intersection of class, gender, education and place. Through extended geological metaphor, readers witness the orogeny, crystallization, and weathering of the human soul. Doreen’s journey reveals the ways even a woman’s most precious connections—her children, her grandchildren, her lover—operate within larger social structures capable of challenging her sovereignty.”
C.M. MAYO: What inspired you to write this novel?
GINGER EAGER: I’d gone with a friend to look at a farmhouse for sale. It seemed perfect in the listing, an older home that was both livable and “a handyman’s dream,” on acreage with mature hardwoods and a pond.
The drive in was gorgeous. It was August, and the hardwoods were thick enough for the road to be mostly in shadow with just a bit of dappled light. We drove through a wide, shallow creek, and I found it terribly romantic to consider living in a place I’d need vehicle clearance to reach.
The trees thinned as we approached the house. The sun beat down and insects screamed from the overgrown fields. There was no shade, just the inarguable fact of August in the Georgia. My friend parked, turned off her truck off. We heard the roar of an interstate. The house was difficult to reach by vehicle, but if you were on foot it was just a few acres from I-20.
We stood looking at the house. It needed quite a bit of work. The owner told us there were tenants in the process of moving out. They should be gone, he’d said, and the door’s unlocked. Ours was the only vehicle. We climbed the porch and knocked.
“Who the f*** is it?” shrieked a woman’s voice from inside.
“We’re here to see the house,” said my friend. “It’s for sale.”
The heat-swollen door was forced open just enough for us to see a slice of the woman’s face. I’m not sure when she’d last eaten a decent meal, and her eyes darted about. “My husband is down at the pond.” She scratched at scabs on her arms. “He’ll shoot you if he sees you here. He don’t welcome visitors.”
We thanked her and left. I don’t know if she had a husband or a gun, but she needed the privacy she asked for. Something mean had her in its grip.
That afternoon, my friend called the owner, and he confessed that the home was occupied by squatters. He was unable to get them out of the house.
The theory that there should be no homeless because there are enough homes for all feels morally right to me. But what does this look like in practice? What does this look like in a deeply rural area where the social safety net may be only what your friends and family are able and willing to provide? A home—only a home—is never enough. I kept thinking of that woman, and wondering how she’d ended up in the situation in which we found her.
The first scene I wrote occurs near the end of the novel. Doreen, the protagonist, goes to help her son who has lost so much he is now squatting in a house much like the one I encountered with my friend. I thought I wrote a short story, but the characters haunted me, and soon I was working backward, writing the story that preceded the event.
C.M. MAYO: As you were writing, did you have in mind an ideal reader?
GINGER EAGER: Myself at eighteen.
I was in an abusive relationship from fourteen to twenty. I didn’t find much help for this in my family culture or in the religion of my childhood. I’d long been a bookish kid, and literature became my teacher and advocate. When I was in high school, writers like Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews helped to unveil for me the place and the culture in which I lived. In college I found books like Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina. It took time, but I began to see that what I believed to be true about men and women, about love, about “goodness” and “badness,” simply wasn’t true. Women’s Studies courses helped with this too. Literature and education save lives.
C.M. MAYO:Now that it has been published, can you describe the ideal reader for this novel as you see him or her now?
GINGER EAGER: My goal was to write a book with a plot line exciting enough for any fan of gritty Southern fiction to enjoy. If you like Daniel Woodrell and David Joy, you’ll like The Nature of Remains.
C.M. MAYO:Which writers have been the most important influences for you?
GINGER EAGER: I’ve already listed so many, haven’t I?
I need to add Margaret Atwood to the list. Cat’s Eye is the finest novel about girlhood that I’ve read. I return to it every couple of years, and thus far my opinion remains unchanged. I also return to Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. That these novels were written by the same person stuns me. She’s such a brave and nimble writer.
Poetry is important to me. Jane Hirshfield, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, Kay Ryan. I have works from these folks on a low shelf near my desk and will grab one of their collections when my words start to feel thick and wooden.
C.M. MAYO:Which writers are you reading now?
GINGER EAGER:Tap Out, Edgar Kunz’s first poetry collection, is so good. I’ve been returning to it for months.
My family went to Scotland last year, and in a local bookstore I bought The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall. I fell hard for the protagonist, a biologist from humble roots who discovers she’s pregnant just as she’s leaving a job in Idaho to return, alone, to her hometown in northern England. She becomes a single mother and reintroduces wolves to an earl’s estate all at the same time. I’ve since read two more of Hall’s novels, and each one has been fantastic.
C.M. MAYO:How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?
GINGER EAGER: The Digital Revolution is a blessing and a curse, isn’t it?
Information—knowledge!—is so much more easily available. There are several podcasts that are like church to me: Buddhist Geeks, Medicine Stories, On Being, DharmaPunx NYC. What did I do before I could listen to things like this while running errands?
I also love the availability of music. My family has a Spotify subscription, and we share songs and albums and new artists with one another. I remember having to choose between books and cds. I almost never chose cds. I’m catching up now on all sorts of music I missed in my twenties. The flip side of this availability is that musicians now have to tour to make a living. That’s so hard on the body and mind. I think of the Gillian Welch song, “Everything is Free.”
As much as possible, I make my office a quiet space. I don’t bring my cellphone into my office. On my laptop, I don’t have notifications turned on for emails or text messages or social media, and my cell doesn’t ring through to my laptop. I’ve only ever allowed myself to check social media on my phone, so my brain doesn’t reach for the escape hatch of Instagram when I’m working at the computer.
Email is the hardest for me. I’ve lost so many good working hours to emails. Someone smart, maybe Glennon Doyle, described email as a to-do list that anyone can add to, and I definitely have this relationship with it. I go through phases where I do a lot of flagging and categorizing, and then I forget to tend to things because they feel complete once they’re flagged and categorized. So then I’ll go through a phase where I try to just answer everything once a day. This doesn’t work either. It’s either noon before I’m settling down to work, or I’m dealing with emails at night, when I’d rather be reading. I need help with email!
C.M. MAYO:Another question apropos of the Digital Revolution. At what point were you working on paper? Was working on paper necessary for you or problematic?
GINGER EAGER: I keep several journals in composition style notebooks. I have one related to my reading life, one related to my daily tasks and accomplishments, one related to my tracking of the seasons, one for ideas for future novels, one for my moody outbursts—the list goes on. Some fill quickly and others fill over a period of years. I mine these journals for all sorts of information that finds its way into my fiction and nonfiction.
For any sort of work that isn’t a type of journaling, I work on a laptop. This includes drafting, revision, and editing. I don’t like to draft, revise, or edit in longhand. My process for that type of writing is different—I go fast, and I delete a lot. When I do this on paper, I end up with whole pages of scratch outs, and I sometimes can’t read my own words. It makes me nutty. I’ve never written work I intend for the public on paper. When I began doing more than journaling, I wrote on a word processor.
C.M. MAYO:For those looking to publish, what would be your most hard-earned piece of advice?
GINGER EAGER: When I was in grad school, the director quoted the movie, Glengarry Glen Ross: “Always be closing.” The idea is that one should be ever on the lookout for new opportunities. One should be making connections, and finishing pieces, and submitting to journals. Network, network, network! I was told that publication is a numbers game, and that she who submits the most publishes the most. Finding an agent is said to be a numbers game too—a friend advised I query three hundred people. All of this is excellent advice in regards to publishing and building a career as a writer. It’s vital if you want to land (or keep) a full-time job in academia.
I’m only now able to do many of those things I was advised to do in grad school. The reasons for this are many, but the strongest is personality. “Always be closing” suits best the writers who are fast and bold. I’m neither of these things. In fact, I’m the opposite, slow and anxious. But I’ve kept at it, and doors have opened, and with each door opening I’m able to do a little better the things I know I must. Maybe the only trait you absolutely must possess if you want to publish is stubbornness. I joke that my spirit animal is the pack mule. Pack mules are never the fastest or prettiest ones to reach camp, but they always show up, and they arrive bearing dinner, whiskey, and the tents.
C.M. MAYO:If you could travel back in time ten years, what is the most important piece of writerly advice that you give yourself?
GINGER EAGER: There is this Buddhist story about a farmer whose son breaks his leg just before rice harvest. “Bad luck, bad luck,” say all of the villagers. But then, during the harvest, the army whooshes through town on the way to war and conscripts all of the young men. The boy with the broken leg is left behind. “Good luck, good luck,” say the villagers. The story goes on like this, good luck and bad luck unfurling from the same event.
I’ve just released my debut novel during the global Covid-19 pandemic. It was a virtual event. A virtual release wasn’t the original plan, and there are other events canceled that cannot be replicated. This might seem like bad luck.
But I had so many people rally behind my book and invite me to be a part of their events—I was able to launch my book as part of the Decatur Book Festival’s online programming. I was able to be part of the Joshilyn Jackson Reads track. Local libraries and the Georgia Center for the Book all promoted the event. A smart and scrappy indie bookstore, Acapella Books, sold books for the event. This not the sort of community and press that a literary debut novelist with a very small press typically encounters.
And my good luck didn’t end there—during the event itself, so many people I know and love showed up virtually, far more than would have come to an in-person launch. There were almost 250 people in attendance, and I recognized most of the names. It’s permanently mind-altering to feel that supported. It’s permanently mind-altering to experience as much gratitude as I have.
Who knows what event will unfold next? It might be very bad luck indeed. The point is that nothing is predictable. My advice to myself would be to enjoy the process. We should enjoy writing. We should enjoy our lives. We could be conscripted for war tomorrow.
C.M. MAYO:What’s next for you?
GINGER EAGER: I’m working on a new novel. I don’t want to say too much about it because I feel that could jinx it. I will say that it’s set on the Altamaha River in coastal Georgia. If anyone is heading that way, reach out to me through my website for the name of an excellent tour guide.
The outlook for the book biz in general… well… let’s say if it were weather, you’d want thermal underwear and a flashlight with extra batteries. (As a writer that doesn’t phase me in the least, in case you were wondering, for I live in my very own ever-sunlit and toasty-cavernous imaginal crystal igloo! Dear writerly reader, I can recommend it! Write on!) Nonetheless one bright spot just might sparkle: certain niches of the rare book business. It has occurred to me, rare book aficionada that I am, to go into this business, but whenever the urge strikes, I make a cup of camomile tea, do some Pranayama… and reread Greg Gibson’s “Don’t Do It.”
The best of the rare book purveyors are members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA). Over the past few months I’ve been watching some interviews with these fine folks on the ABAA website. Herewith some of the especially interesting ones, starting with Larisa Cassell:
Nicholas Potter:
Peter Burnett:
John Reznikoff:
Priscilla Juvelis:
Penelope Daly:
P.S. Check out Greg Gibson’s Ten Pound Island Book Company blog here. (He’s a splendid writer, too. My favorite of his books is Demon of the Waters, one of the strangest true stories I have ever read.)
I spent that terrible day and many of the days afterwards glued to the television– what a waste of time. Even still, if briefly, I worked on my query and submission letters, so determined was I, after having let my second agent go (long, boring story), to place my memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico. That month, it seemed the publishing world, already in decline, had stopped dead. But later that very same month, an acceptance letter came from the University of Utah Press, and so Miraculous Air was published in the fall of 2002. All these years later, I am proud of that book, and I believe it is a healing book. I believe it will be read beyond my lifetime. Like other such books, it’s a gift, a gift to the artist, and by the alchemy of intention, persistence, work, skill, and time, a gift from the artist. This is what art is.
And books, by their nature, are time-travelers. Right now I’m reading (wild laugh) about the Thirty Years War. And Pierre Hadot on the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius.
So what do I have to say apropos of current events? If you’re interested, and you have a chunk of time and the attentional focus for something complex, this, which I wrote last fall, and this, which I delivered at a writer’s conference in 2016.
#
Because I’m deep into doing some deep work, this Monday’s post is from the deepdom of the Madam Mayo archives: a note about Cal Newport’s Deep Work. (One of these days I’m going to make a kooky little desk-top altar to this guy, light a candle, and bring it flowers.)
Cal Newport’s “Deep Work,” Study Hacks Blog, and On Quitting Social Media
Originally posted on Madam Mayo Blog, September 26, 2016
Find out about a must-read book, a must-read blog, and a must-watch TED Talk by Georgetown University Associate Professor of Computer Science Cal Newport, all in one handy post at his Study Hacks Blog, “Quit Social Media.”
What Newport says in that post is provocative– undoubtedly just the title will rub many people’s fur the wrong way, and no surprise, it already has many commenters a-huffing & puffing.
Here is my comment on Cal Newport’s post:
Thank you for this blog, for your TED Talk, and for your books, especially Deep Work. I am a writer with 2 finance books published under another name, plus 4 literary books, plus an anthology– all of which is to say, I understand the nature and immense benefits of deep work.
But dealing with the Internet… that has been a challenge for me over the past several years, and especially when all these shiny new social media toys seemed to be so necessary and (apparently) effective for promoting one’s books. Every publicist, marketing staff, my fellow writers, all seem slaves now to social media. I can assure you, every writers conference has a panel on book PR and social media.
For a while, at the enthusiastic urging of one of my writer-friends, by the way, a best-selling and very fine historical novelist, I maintained a Facebook page, but when I realized what a time-suck it was, and how FB made it intentionally and so deviously addictive, I deactivated my account. I had also come to recognize that people addicted to FB, as seemed to be not all but most of my “FB friends,” often as they might “like” and comment on my posts there, are probably not my readers. (My books require sustained focus; I admit, they can be challenging.) I deactivated my FB more than a year ago, and I breathe a sigh of relief about it every blessed day.
As for your book, Deep Work, much of what you say was already familiar to me from my own experience as a writer, but I appreciated the reminders, especially in light of these contemporary challenges to sustaining focus. What was especially interesting and intriguing to me was the new cognitive research you mention. Next time I teach a writing workshop you can be sure that Deep Work will be on the syllabus.
Do I miss interacting with friends and family on FB? Yes, but now I have more time for higher quality interpersonal interactions, such as, say, emails, telephone conversations, and–Land o’ Goshen!!– actually getting together in person.
However, for the record, I’m not (yet) giving up the three social media tools I still use, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, because:
(1) With LinkedIn and Twitter I appreciate having a way to contact certain individuals when email is not a workable option (nieces and nephews, you know who you are!);
(2) I appreciate the broadcast opportunity, modest as it is. Check out my YouTube channel here. As for Linked In and Twitter, usually I just zip in to tweet a blog post or a podcast, then out, and not every day;
UPDATE: Twitter, meh. Now, with the rarest of exceptions, I tweet once a month, as a courtesy to the authors who do a Q & A for Madam Mayo blog.
(3) I turned off their notifications;
(4) I do not find these services addictive, as I did Facebook, hence, I am not tempted to constantly check them.
In sum, for me– and of course, this might be different for you– at this time– and no guarantees for the future– the benefits of maintaining my LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube accounts outweigh the costs.
SPEAKING OF COSTS
Speaking of costs, one of the vital arguments Cal Newport makes in Deep Work is that pointing out the benefits of utilizing any given social media tool is not enough; one must also take into full account its opportunity costs in your actual practice. Oftentimes these costs are devastating. But fear of “missing out,” fear of admitting that one could have done so much better than to have spent weeks, months, even years of precious hours agog at mindless trivia– in short, the fear and pride behind cognitive dissonance– make many otherwise highly intelligent people blind to this simplest of common-sense arguments.
One question that popped up in the comments there at Study Hacks blog was about the definition of “social media”: Does it include blogs? Ironically, since he publishes comments and on occasion responds to them, I consider Cal Newport’s “Study Hacks Blog” to be social media. I do not consider this blog, “Madam Mayo,” to be “social media,” however, because an eon ago I closed the comments section.
That said, dear thoughtful and courteous reader, your comments via email are always welcome. I invite you to write to me here.
P.S. My recommended reading lists for my writing workshops are here. You will find Cal Newport’s excellent Deep Work on my list of works on Creative Process. And you can read my review of Cal Newport’s earlier book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You,here.
In these haunted times, I thought I’d share some pictures by my amiga N. from our long ago visit to an exceptionally peaceful and inspiring place: Poet Sir Edward James’ surrealistic sculpture garden in Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, Mexico. I believe that every one of us has an urge to create. To see such strange and beautiful extravagance as this is to see a little bit more into the wonder of what it means to be human.
“The border between so-called ‘literary fiction’ and ‘genre fiction’ is increasingly porous, of course, but some people still resolutely read on one side of that fence and might even be dismissive of fiction on the opposite side. My ideal reader might have a foot in both camps—and since a couple of pieces here are more experimental in structure, they’d ideally be willing to venture out a bit further too.” — Art Taylor
Most people when they think of Washington, well… there’s Washington Monument! Cue spy movie music… secret service limos streaking by…. But I lived there for a spell back when and I, I who live on Planet C.M. Mayo, found Washington to be a roaringly rich literary scene. In Washington I never lacked for events, whether for my own work or to celebrate / learn from others: book launches, poetry reading series, workshops, writers groups, book groups, conferences, book fairs… Did you know, dear writerly readers, that the Washington DC metropolitan area (which includes northern Virginia and close-in Maryland) is one of the top literary centers of the United States? And one of the most talented writers in Washington is none other than my guest for this month’s Q & A, Art Taylor. He has a new book out, and it promises to be a most excellent read. Read on!
Catalog copy: The Boy Detective & The Summer of 74 and Other Tales of Suspense features 16 stories that have collectively won an Edgar Award, two Anthony Awards (one as editor), four Agatha Awards, three Macavity Awards, and three Derringer Awards. From his first story for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1995 to his latest for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine— the title story, 25 years in the making–this collection charts the development of Art Taylor’s career so far… and turns the page toward more stories still ahead.
Official Art Taylor bio: Art Taylor is the author of the story collection The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense and of the novel in stories On the Road with Del & Louise, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. He won the 2019 Edgar Award for Best Short Story for “English 398: Fiction Workshop,” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and he has won three additional Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, three Macavity Awards, and three consecutive Derringer Awards for his short fiction. His work has also appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, and he edited Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon Anthology 2015, winner of the Anthony Award for Best Anthology or Collection. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University, and he has contributed frequently to the Washington Post, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and Mystery Scene Magazine.
C.M. MAYO:What inspired you to write the stories in The Boy Detective & The Summer of 74?
ART TAYLOR: The stories in The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense weren’t originally written with an eye toward being part of a collection; all of the stories were previously published in magazines or anthologies or online—over a period of 25 years, in fact!—so putting the collection together was more about looking back and deciding which stories seemed to stand out as important over all those years (a greatest hits?) and also which fit together well; as it turned out, many of the stories here are about relationships (romantic relationship, family relationship, friendships), about betrayals in those relationships, and about the consequences that follow. I’ll admit, it was enlightening to revisit older stories and to see how consistent some of my focus has been. I hope the collection comes together in a satisfying way for the reader too.
C.M. MAYO:If a reader were to read only one of these stories, which would you most recommend, and why?
ART TAYLOR: “The Care and Feeding of Houseplants,” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, is a story that seems to have stood out for readers and it’s also one that strikes me as representative of some of my interests and ambitions too, I guess. It’s the story of a love triangle—a husband and wife and her lover—and what turns out to be an ill-fated backyard cookout arranged by the lover, who wants the chance to strut a bit before that cuckolded husband. The story is told in alternating sections from the point of view of each main character, revealing some of their backstory, their desires and fears, their hidden selves—even while the action of the story proceeds ahead, step by (inevitable?) step.
C.M. MAYO:Which of these stories is your personal favorite, and why?
ART TAYLOR: The title story was published most recently—in the January/February 2020 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine—but it’s one I’ve worked on for a long (long) time; I wrote the first draft of it in the mid-1990s, inspired by an incident in my own childhood in the mid-1970s—the time when some friends and I found a large animal bone in their backyard, a mystery to be solved! The story has evolved over those many years—short story, longer story, one strand of a novel, a standalone novella, etc.—and I’m both proud of what it evolved into and pleased it’s finally done and out in the world.
C.M. MAYO:As you were writing these stories did you have in mind an ideal reader? And can you describe how you see the ideal reader for these stories?
ART TAYLOR: I don’t find myself picturing a specific reader while I’m writing—I’m struggling just to figure out what I’m trying to do! But in terms of which readers might be drawn to these stories…. I write primarily in the genre of crime fiction, so I think readers of crime fiction would be my core audience, but I find myself drawing as often on what might be labeled literary fiction. The border between so-called “literary fiction” and “genre fiction” is increasingly porous, of course, but some people still resolutely read on one side of that fence and might even be dismissive of fiction on the opposite side. My ideal reader might have a foot in both camps—and since a couple of pieces here are more experimental in structure, they’d ideally be willing to venture out a bit further too.
C.M. MAYO:Can you talk about which writers have been the most important influences for you?
ART TAYLOR: Following up on the above, the short story writers I’ve learned from have been traditionally canonical—Chekhov, Hemingway, O’Connor, Welty, Joyce Carol Oates, William Trevor—as often as they’re more crime-fiction-specific: Stanley Ellin, Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell, Peter Lovesey, and David Dean, just to name a few.
C.M. MAYO:Which writers are you reading now?
ART TAYLOR: Taking this one literally—with emphasis on now! I just finished Martin Edwards’ new novel Mortmain Hall—a nice mix of Golden Age Detection and contemporary noirishness. Also on my nightstand: 101 Years’ Entertainment: The Great Detective Stories, 1841-1941, edited by Ellery Queen; Simply the Best Mysteries: Edgar Award Winners and Front-runners, edited by Janet Hutchings; Fifty-two Stories, a new translation of Chekhov’s lesser-known tales; and an advance copy of my friend James McCrone’s forthcoming novel, Emergency Powers.
C.M. MAYO:How has the Digital Revolution affected your writing? Specifically, has it become more challenging to stay focused with the siren calls of email, texting, blogs, online newspapers and magazines, social media, and such? If so, do you have some tips and tricks you might be able to share?
ART TAYLOR: Yikes! Yes… Answering these questions, I’ve flipped to email, Facebook, Goodreads, the online discussion board for my class, and a couple of article in the Washington Post, plus I’ve been helping my son navigate his own online learning, which has involved Google, YouTube, and more. I wish I did have tips to avoid all that!
C.M. MAYO:Another question apropos of the Digital Revolution. At what point, if any, were you working on paper? Was working on paper necessary for you, or problematic?
ART TAYLOR: I draft and revise almost exclusively online, but I still keep a notebook for jotting down thoughts and ideas and sketching out possibilities—though I have to transfer those quickly back to the computer, because I have trouble reading my own handwriting! (That may provide a clue why I’ve written on the computer for nearly as long as I can remember—since college, in fact.)
C.M. MAYO:What is the most important piece of advice you would offer to another writer who is just starting out? And, if you could travel back in time, to your own thirty year-old self?
ART TAYLOR: Make your writing a priority for at least some portion of the day—that’s advice to aspiring writers and advice to my younger self. It’s advice I wish I could follow myself, amidst not only those “siren calls” you mentioned above but also the demands coming from so many other directions.
C.M. MAYO:What’s next for you?
ART TAYLOR: Mid-semester and mid-pandemic (mid?) I’m having trouble writing anything new. But I do have stories in two new books—“A Close Shave” in the novel in stories The Swamp Killers and “Both Sides Now,” co-written with my wife Tara Laskowski, in The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell—and another, “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” forthcoming in the anthology Chesapeake Crimes: Invitation to Murder. I’m also editing the anthology California Schemin’, produced in conjunction with this year’s Bouchercon, the World Mystery Conference; the conference was, sadly, cancelled, but the anthology goes on!
It was in 2012, when I started on my still in-progress book about Far West Texas, that I first encountered the paintings of Xavier González in the Museum of the Big Bend on the Sul Ross University Campus in Alpine, Texas. I was there to see “The Lost Colony,” an exhibition of works by painters associated with the summer Art Colony of the Sul Ross College (now Sul Ross State University). The works were from 1921-1950; the Art Colony, formally so-called, spanned the years 1932-1950.
Curator Mary Bones gave me a fascinating interview about “The Lost Colony,” which you can listen to here.)
“MOONLIGHT OVER THE CHISOS,” 1934
The artwork by Xavier González that most enchanted me was his magnificent “Moonlight Over the Chisos” of 1934. It was not in the show itself, however, but tucked into the top of the stairwell leading down to the museum’s map collection– not an ideal location, but no doubt one of the few available walls large enough to accommodate the massive 6 x 14 feet canvas.
“Moonlight Over the Chisos” is in the tradition of Mexican murals of the 1930s, although technically not a mural, as it is painted on canvas. (In no way do these two photos, snapped with my iPhone and pasted together with a screenshot, do this masterpiece justice. Alas, the painting is so large, I couldn’t back up far enough to fit the whole of it into one shot.)
(Dear reader, if you haven’t hiked the Chisos, you have yet to live.)
XAVIER GONZÁLEZ IN MEXICO CITY (RESEARCH UNDERWAY…)
What also caught my attention was that González had studied art in Mexico City and precisely during the time of great muralists, among them, Diego Rivera. Mary Bones told me: “Xavier González spent many summers down in Mexico and Mexico City looking at the muralists.”
Born in Almería, Spain in 1898, as a child Xavier González immigrated with his family to Mexico.
An important influence on his development as an artist was his maternal uncle, the academic painter José Arpa (1858-1952), a native of Spain who later divided his time between Mexico City and San Antonio– and became a leading figure in the art community of the latter, running an art school out of the Witte Museum. According to the notes for “The Three Worlds of Jose Arpa y Perea” exhibition of 2015 from the website of the San Antonio Museum of Art, Arpa won the Rome Prize three times and had been offered the directorship of the Academia de San Carlos, but instead worked independently. In my notes from a visit to González’s archive in the Smithsonian (box 4, unattributed article):
“[José Arpa] received his early art training at the School of Fine Arts in Seville… His first success was in 1891, when his painting of Don Miguel de Manarra won first prize in the Madrid exhibition. Travels in Africa and Europe followed… the Spanish government sent for of his paintings to the first World’s Fair held in Chicago in 1893 as representative of the best of Spain…. shortly after that time the Mexican government sent a man-of-war to Spain and brought him to Mexico to assume charge of the academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City. He later declined the appointment, but remained for many years becoming enthralled with the light and color and movement of the country…”
At age thirteen (circa 1911) Xavier González was studying at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City. This was the same time that 15 year old David Siquieros, who was to became one of Mexico’s greatest muralists, was also beginning his studies at San Carlos. (Did they take the same classes?)
In 1913 the violent stage Revolution intervened… I’m still a little foggy on the details of González’s early life…
The Lost Colony catalog notes that González studied and worked as a mechanical engineer. In 1922 he was working in Iowa for a railroad. Later he studied at night and graduated from the Chicago Art Institute. In 1925, he was assisting his uncle José Arpa in his art school in San Antonio’s Witte Museum and from 1927-29 he was teaching classes himself. González became a US citizen in 1930 and the following year took a faculty position at Sophie Newcomb, the women’s college now folded into Tulane University in New Orleans.
From “The Lost Colony” catalog:
“…much of the work was to be done en plein air with frequent trips to the Davis and Chisos Mountains”
> 1932 González conducted the first summer Art Colony at Sul Ross (along with Julius Woeltz and Aline Rather) > 1933 González in Paris, and also Mexico City (on a leave of absence from Sophie Newcomb College.) > 1934-1939 González conducted sessions of the summer Art Colony. > 1935 González married his student Ethel Edwards.
I hope to be able to dig into the archives at the Academia de San Carlos to find out when exactly González attended and with whom he studied. I am also curious to learn why his uncle José Arpa, after coming all the way from Spain, did not take the helm at the Academia de San Carlos.
#
A VISIT TO THE ANTIGUA ACADEMIA DE SAN CARLOS (Not to be confused with the Museo San Carlos, different building, different neighborhood. Uyy, Mexico City is endlessly endless.)
You’ll find the Antigua Academia de San Carlos a short walk behind the National Palace, at the corner of Moneda and Academia Streets (Calle Moneda y Calle Academia). This GIF shows my approach from Moneda, the National Palace along the right, then the terracotta-colored neoclassic Italianate façade of the Academia de San Carlos.
APPROACHING THE ANTIGUA ACADEMIA SAN CARLOS FROM CALLE MONEDA
The site of the Academia de San Carlos has been continually occupied for almost 500 years. The land once backed the Aztec emperor Moctezuma’s palace, Casas Nuevas. After the Conquest the parcel became the property of the Church; the original building arose as a hospital specializing in syphilis patients.
In the late 18th century King Carlos III sent his chief engraver to New Spain– Mexico wasn’t yet Mexico– to establish an academy and so improve the production of coins– hence the Academia de San Carlos’ location, only steps from the Casa de Moneda, the mint for the colony which was founded in 1535.
Classes began in 1781 and the Academia de las Nobles Artes de San Carlos de la Nueva España, offering instruction in architecture, engraving, painting, and sculpture, was officially inaugurated in 1785.
The oldest fine arts academy in the Americas, San Carlos has been in almost continuous operation for 235 years. It closed in 1822, during the cash-strapped years of the First Empire, and not until 1843 did it reopen, when Santa Anna, in a moment of inspiration, joined it to the lottery which became known as the Lotería de San Carlos. According to the Mexican Lottery website (my translation):
“The San Carlos Lottery utilized its income to acquire important artworks, provide scholarships for the Academia de San Carlos, and to bring important teachers to Mexico among them, the painter Pelegrín Clave, sculptor Manuel Vilar, landscape painter Eugenio Landesio and architect Javier Cavallari… Thanks to this lottery’s economic success it was possible to address other large and urgent needs of the general population in a time of foreign invasions and civil wars that left in the country in circumstances of chronic poverty.”
My 49 second video below shows the entrance, then the central patio before “Winged Victory” and brief look at glass dome which was installed by Antonio Rivas Mercado in 1913. According to Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo in I Speak of the City: Mexico City at the Turn of the Twentieth Century(high recommended):
“Antonio Rivas Mercado was one of the few Mexican architects favored with contracts for major national construction projects. But he was a French-trained architect, a follower of the Paris beaux-arts style, who had lived in London and Paris for many years.” (p. 22)
The dome was manufactured in France. Note the Art Nouveau ojos de buey or oval windows, also designed by Rivas Mercado for the section added to help support the dome’s weight. Part of the tour included a jazz concert by Los Cuatro Saxofones (The Four Saxophones).
Here is a much better video made by the university (about 7 minutes, in Spanish):
Winged Victory represents the goddess Nike. Most Mexicans, familiar with the American sports shoe brand, pronounce Nike to rhyme with bike. Professor Díaz Mendieta set his audience straight. In Spanish Nike is pronounced Nee-keh. She is the symbol of the Academia de San Carlos. The other 19th century plaster casts of iconic Greek and Renaissance sculptures, including Michelangelo’s Moses and head of David, are not for decoration but for the students to copy.
This handsome gallery of walnut wood and gold leaf features a ceiling decorated with portraits of artists and scientists including Copernicus and Raphael. A few of the heads fell off during the 1985 earthquake. There was little light by this time, alas; the colors in this room are actually rich and brilliant.
And this is the Centennial Gallery, decorated in the then fashionable Frenchified festoonerie for the academy’s 100th anniversary:
Voilà, Weltschmerzerie and sparkly donuts:
Finally, here is a GIF of Professor Díaz Mendieta wrapping up the tour in the torreo or bullring, an original classroom. The torreo was used not for making art but teaching theory and history of art. No doubt Diego Rivera addressed students here, as did his professor, Santiago Rebull, and many more in a long list of Mexico’s greatest artists.
PROFESSOR DANTE DIAZ MENDIETA IN EL TORREO, OR THE BULLRING, THE CLASSROOM AT THE ANTIGUA ACADEMIA DE SAN CARLOS
The desks are notably narrower than in classrooms today. The room (was it windowless?) felt a smidge creepy.
SIDEBAR (FROM ONE VERY MACHO MUNDO): A FEW OF THE NOTABLE ARTISTS OF THE ACADEMIA DE SAN CARLOS, BY DATE OF BIRTH
MANUEL TOLSA, AN ARCHITECT AND SCULPTOR WHO MERITS AT LEAST 378 BLOG POSTS
The great glass dome had gone dark when Professor Díaz Mendieta concluded on the wicked note that of course there are ghosts in here: a little girl who laughs; loud knocks; and, as the nightwatchman swears, on occasion in the wee hours of the night, moving from one side of the entrance foyer and disappearing into the opposite wall, a procession of monks holding torchlights.
Recently the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) conducted an excavation that turned up 17 bodies. Presumably these were not of art students but syphilis patients of the 18th, 17th, or even 16th century.
¿Y LA FRIDA?
It’s impossible to talk about Mexican artists without mentioning Frida Kahlo. No, Professor Díaz Mendieta answered the question, Frida did not take classes at the Academia de San Carlos; at that time it was for men only, but Frida hung out here (andaba aquí) with her sweetheart, Diego Rivera.
In a future blog post I will talking about González’s wife Ethel Edwards; also about noted Texas regionalist painter Julius Woeltz (1911-1956), a student of González’s who taught at the summer art colony at Sul Ross and who accompanied González on some of his trips to paint in Mexico City in 1934 and 1935. (Woeltz also served as best man at González’s wedding.) I hope to also unearth more about Woeltz in the archives of the Academia de San Carlos. Stay tuned. Curator Mary Bones also talks about these and many other artists of the “Lost Colony” in my “Marfa Mondays” podcast interview. Again, that recording and transcript are available free here.
#
HOW TO GET THE TOUR
(UPDATE May 18, 2020: I have no idea whether any of this information is still valid. At present, because of the covid, many places in Mexico City remain closed.)
On the last Wednesday of every month, at 7 PM, UNAM art history professor Dante Díaz Mendieta offers a free tour, no reservations required. (In Spanish, of course.) Check for updates on the Facebook pages “Difusión San Carlos” or “GestionCulturalSanCarlos” or call tel. 5522-0630 ext 228.
