Using Imagery (The “Metaphor Stuff”)

This blog posts on Mondays. Second Mondays of the month I devote to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. Welcome!

> For the archive of workshop posts click here.

The study of English Literature has its pleasures and virtues, and much to do with learning the craft of creative writing; nonetheless, these are not one and the same endeavor. You can earn a PhD in race, class, gender, fill-in-the-blank in the novel, yet still not have the wherewithal to actually write one. That said, a novelist who has never read anything by Shakespeare or, say, Jane Austen, and learned to appreciate why such works are so celebrated, is working at a calamitous disadvantage.

Analogy: an art historian specializing in baroque cabinets is not the cabinet-maker who crafts them. While the art historian focuses on fact and figures and on what the baroque cabinet represents in all its broader context; the latter actually makes one. The former might yammer on for a book or two about the Hanseatic League or the Counter Reformation or the rise of the urban bourgeoisie, and so and and so forth; the latter, she’ll worry about the specifics of the grain of the wood; the type of joint; the choice of tool; a carved rose or a daisy for the keyhole?

Further analogy: any furniture maker who would manufacture a baroque-style cabinet would undoubtedly benefit from some familiarity with the finer examples that have survived.

DEFINITIONS

As a writer, I don’t noodle much about literary definitions of the sort a highschool English teacher would lay on a multiple choice exam, e.g., whether thus-and-such is a simile or a personificaction, metaphor, or allusion. I just think of “imagery” as my palette of “metaphor stuff.” I, the artist, can ignore it. Or I can make tiny dabs of this; squirts of that; wild oceanic splashes! In other words, as I write a novel or a story or a poem or an essay, I use imagery– I apply “metaphor stuff”–when and as I judge it apt.

(Of course, if we aim to find readers, then comes revision and editing, and further revision… More about that big bramble of a subject anon.)

For using imagery, there is no formula. Some marvelous writers relish using loads of it, others, equally marvelous, apply it sparingly.

In general, it serves to slow down, focus and brighten an idea, a character, act, place, thing– whatever it is you want the reader to more sharply “see.”

Yeah, but what about clutter?

In my experience, most people who come to a writing workshop for the first time do not have the easily fixable problem of cluttering up their writing with “metaphor stuff”; rather, for lack of it their writing is dull. And when they do use metaphor stuff, alas, it’s more often than not cliché– that is, somebody else’s metaphor stuff, warmed over 279 times. (More about cliché here.)

How to come up with your own original “metaphor stuff”?

1. Practice. The more often you practice, the easier it gets. Like riding a bike, it doesn’t require some otherwordly talent; most people find it challenging at first and then, quickly, something they can “just do.” For a trove of exercises, have a look at my workshop page’s “Giant Golden Buddha” & 364 More Five Minute Writing Exercises.

2. Learn to notice it as you read. You already have an immense treasure of metaphor stuff at-hand, right there in the books you have already read and loved. Go pluck one off your bookshelf, open it at random and chances are, you’ll find metaphor stuff aplenty. As you reread– and as you read any new book– keep your eyes sharp for the way the author uses it. (See my post on Reading as a Writer.) How well do they use it? If you love the book, chances are, the author uses it very well indeed.

For those feeling a little creaky with the creativity mojo, I’ve posted previously about emulation or permutation exercises. Basically, you jot down another writer’s line or two– anything you especially admire– and then vary the nouns and/or verbs, adjectives and/or adverbs (or however you want to do it). In short, in these exercises the idea is not to plagarize another writer; rather, you emulate; by means of play, you create your own lines.

Yes, sometimes, like a big fat cheesy enchilada, too much metaphor stuff in a manuscript can be too too… uhhff, pass the Alkaseltzer.

But again, there is no formula. Switching back to the furniture analogy, I mean, “metaphor stuff,” not everyone wants all the swirls and twirls and dainty dimpled cherubs and roses and whatnotty-whatnots of baroque furniture. But some people think baroque is the Dickens’ chickens.

For your reference, and the satisfaction of all English teachers, herewith some definitions:

ALLUSION
An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicity; in indirect or passing reference.

“Where’s the Plantation?” John Wesley asked. “Gone With the Wind,” said the Grandmother. “Ha ha.”
—Flannery O’Connor “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

ANALOGY
A comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure and for the purpose of explanation or clarification; a correspondence or partial similarity.

A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it’s not open.
—Frank Zappa

Minds are like ovens— if you leave them open all the time, everything comes out half-baked.
—John Michael Greer

METAPHOR
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable; alternatvely, a thing representive or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract.

She had heard any number of women talk of pregnancy as a slow ordeal to be endured, but now from month to month she felt only a peaceful ripening.
—Richard Yates, “A Natural Girl”

PERSONIFICATION
The attribution of a personal nature or personal characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form. (Throw animal forms in there, too, whydoncha.)

He watched the clouds: dark swift horses surging up the sky
—Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano

SIMILE
A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid.

…a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage
—Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

If you want to nerd-out on definitions, other bloggers can help you. Me, I am hereby definitioned-out.

SLOOOOOOOW
DOOOOOOOOOWN

When I teach this workshop I ask my students to each take a turn reading an example aloud. I would suggest that you do the same: Slow down, waaaaay down. Take a long, cool moment to read these examples aloud carefully, crisply, as if you were at the podium before a rapt audience.

We drove on, the morning growing in the sky to our left.
—Rupert Isaacson, The Healing Land: The Bushmen and the Kalahari Desert

I wandered the village of rounded earthen houses, golden and white, decorated with stark geometric designs. They had a peculiar organic quality, as if they had bubbled up from the earth and dried there. Flattened dung cakes stuck on walls to dry looked like giant polka dots.
—Naomi Shihab Nye, “Camel Like Only Camel,” in Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places

Inquisitiveness flutters this way and that, like a bird in a glass house.
—Aldous Huxley, “The Traveller’s-Eye View”

Given the single fossil bone, one fancifully builds up the whole diplodocus.
—Aldous Huxley, “The Traveller’s-Eye View”

A Hollywood millionaire is a strong, silent man, clean-shaven, with a face, either like a hatchet or an uncooked muffin. These, on the contrary, had tremendous beards, talked a great deal, were over-dressed and wore white gloves. They looked like a little party of Bluebeards.
—Aldous Huxley, “The Traveller’s-Eye View”

Most of the above examples are from a handout I’ve used over the years in my “Techniques of Fiction” and “Literary Travel Writing” workshops at the San Miguel Writers Conference and the Writer’s Center. In case you’ve already seen those, herewith, from recent reading, some fresh examples:

But his smile stung me like a nettle. So I barked, “Have you been to the post?”
—Arthur Japin, The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi

My playing is no more like hers, than a lamp is like sunshine.
—Jane Austen, Emma

I have come out to lie on the rocks where I have the black edge of the north island in front of me, Galway Bay, too blue almost to look at, on my right, the Atlantic on my left, a perpendicular cliff under my ankles, and over me innumerable gulls that chase each other in a white cirrus of wings.
—J.M. Synge, The Aran Islands

Again, a curagh with two light people in it floats on the water like a nutshell
—J.M. Synge, The Aran Islands

He stuck with the tried and true—adding figures in his head. You could hear his lips whispering quick-quick-quick, like nuts rolling down a hill, and before you knew it he had the balance.
—Yenta Mash, “The Irony of Fate,” in On the Landing (translated from the Yiddish by Ellen Cassedy)

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WALLACE STEGNER’S
BEYOND THE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN

In the past couple of weeks, apropos of my book in-progress on Far West Texas (trying to get my mind around the history of the American West in general and Reclamation in particular) I’ve had the rich pleasure of reading Wallace Stegner’s Beyond the Hundredth Meridan: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West. Stegner is a master of many things, including “the metaphor stuff.”

Some examples:

It is easy to skirt the region, hard to cross it, for from Bear Lake at its northern border to the Vermillion Cliffs along the south, Utah has a spine like a Stegasuarus.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 161

Powell saw the boat hang for a breath at the head of the rapid and then sweep into it.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 63

Suppose he and his family endured the sun and glare on their treeless prairie, and were not demolished by the cyclones that swept across the plains like great scythes.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 220

The inflexible fact of aridity lay like a fence along the 100th meridian.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 229

Characteristically, he took on more than he could finish. He was a Thor, always getting caught in an attempt to drink the ocean dry or uproot the Midgard serpent.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 279

His handling of the Commission was like a skilled muleskinner’s handling of a twenty-mule team.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 289

Three hundred and sixty degrees of horizon ringed them, the sky fitted the earth like a bell jar.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 297

And in these last examples, in addition to “metaphor stuff,” Stegner also uses alliteration, listing, and repetition:

The great men of Zion are on the map in Brigham City and Heber City and Knightsville, and beween and among these are scattered those dense but hollow names, smooth outside with use, packed with associations like internal crystals, that come from the Bible or the Book of Mormon—names that are like Lehi and Manti and Hebron, Nephi and Moroni and Moab.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 192

But here before him was the opportunity of his life, the massive and complex problem of planning for the West whose parts meshed in an intricate system. And here was he with twenty years of experience and knowledge, every bit of which could be applied to the problem as an engine’s power is applied to the axles. The action of Congress, stumilated by Stewart and Teller, had shifted him into gear, and he was not now going to be content with making a humming noise or moving pistons meaninglessly up and down. He was going to turn wheels.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 305

It was the West itself that beat him, the Big Bill Stewarts and Gideon Moodys, the land and cattle and water barons, the plain homesteaders, the locally patriotic, the ambitious, the venal, the acquisitive, the myth-bound West which insisted on running into the future like a streetcar on a gravel road.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 338

He was not merely an explorer, an opener, and an observer, he was a prophet. And yet by the law of motion (and hence of history) which he himself accepted, his motion as a particle in the jar and collision of American life was bound to be spiral. His reforms have taken effect, his plans have been adopted, but partially, belatedly, sidelong, as a yielding resultant of two nearly equal stresses.
—Stegner, BTHM, p. 350

>> Find more workshop posts in the archive here; and many more resources at my workshop page on www.cmmayo.com here.

From The Writer’s Carousel: Literary Travel Writing

It Can Be Done! This Writer’s Distraction Free Smartphone

C.M. Mayo’s Workshop Page: Resources for Writers

Find out more about C.M. Mayo’s books, shorter works, podcasts, and more at www.cmmayo.com.


Migrating this Blog to Self-Hosted WordPress

Finally, after more than a decade, I took my own advice to get Madam Mayo off the free Google blogger platform and onto self-hosted WordPress here at www.madam-mayo.com. It was one part 2019 new year’s resolution and another part yikes-my-book-Meteor-is-about-to-come-out-and-I-should-have-already-taken-care-of-this. For the past few weeks I’ve been huffing and puffing up a steeper learning curve, and one with quite a few more scenic (and not-so-scenic) detours, than I had anticipated.

Oops, I needed to have packed more trail mix and the glamping equipment! A few elephants to carry it all would have been fun, too. Well, dangit, I meant to spend the month of January writing about Texas. (Photo: Engraving by G.H. Cushman of a painting by G.P.A Healy, Library of Congress, in the public domain.)

I do not aim, by the way, to import the entire archive of Madam Mayo posts going back to 2006. Archaeologists of Ur-litblogdom are hereby invited to dig around in the archives right where they always were and shall remain, for as long as Googledom, for whatever reasons known only to itself, deems apt. What I am bringing over here to www.madam-mayo.com, with selected links updated, are those posts that I believe best hold up over time: some transcripts of my talks, and other items related to my books (including the one in-progress) and podcasts; book reviews and the richer notes on recommended reading; articles for my writing workshop; and the now substantial collection of Q & As with other writers.

If you’re new to this blog, a few of last year’s posts that I would consider representative of what you can expect here going into 2019 include:

Working with a Working Library: Kuddelmuddel
September 24, 2018

Diction Drops and Spikes
August 13, 2018
(In 2019 look for workshop posts on the second Monday of each month)

Top 10+ Books Read 2018
December 17, 2018

Q & A: Leslie Pietrzyk on Writers Groups,
the Siren Song of the Online World, and on Writing Silver Girl
February 26, 2018
(In 2019 Q & A’s will post on the fourth Monday of each month)

As of today, February 4, 2019, the top Madam Mayo posts for 2018–some thirty in all– plus a wee batch (mainly workshop posts) from a sprinkling of earlier years, are now live here at www.madam-mayo.com. So I have more to do.

I also need to figure out the signup-by-email thing…

In case you are also thinking of migrating a blog to WordPress, or starting a new blog on WordPress, herewith a few resources that I have found especially helpful:

“Building an Author Website on WordPress: How to Start Smart”
by Jane Friedman

Five WordPress Themes for Professional Authors
(a guestblog post by Nate Hoffelder for Jane Friedman’s blog)

WP Beginner

The Strangely Beautiful Sierra Madera Astrobleme

Q & A: Carolina Castillo Crimm,
Author of De León, A Tejano Family History

Marshall McLuhan: Some Notes

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.

Q & A: David A. Taylor on “Cork Wars: Intrigue and Industry in WWII”

This blog posts on Mondays. This year the fourth Monday of the month is dedicated to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

I was excited to see David A. Taylor’s Cork Wars: Intrigue and Industry in World War II, firstly because I know from his previous works that this promises to be a thoroughly researched and superbly written history; and secondly because I have some tangentially related family history with another strategic material during World War II. My grandfather, organic chemist Frank R. Mayo, was then a research chemist at U.S. Rubber Company working on the crucial task of creating a synthetic rubber that could be mass-produced in a dangerously narrowing window of time; sources of natural rubber –essential for making automobile and airplane tires as well as tank caterpillar tracks–had been cut off when the Japanese invaded southeast Asia. Moreover, these days I am not the only one nervously aware that as we become increasingly dependent on our computers, smartphones, and electric vehicles, we are becoming increasingly beholden to a supply of “rare earths,” many found nowhere near the United States, for the batteries (as David mentions in this interview).

Cork, a strategic material: Who’dathunkit?

Cork Wars by David Taylor

Taylor’s Cork Wars has been garnering rich praise. Meredith Hindley, author of Destination Casablanca, calls Cork Wars “fascinating;” Mary Otto, author of Teeth, says: “Cork Wars captures the drama of three families whose lives are bound up with a precious forest product—and the urgency of war;” and noted biographer Douglas Brinkley calls Cork Wars “a landmark achievement!”

David A. Taylor

C.M. MAYO: How might you describe the ideal reader for Cork Wars?

DAVID A. TAYLOR: The story is narrative nonfiction, so really the ideal reader is anyone who loves a good story. Because it involves espionage and World War II, that tends toward a male reader but the focus on families and how they respond to a crisis will make it interesting to a wider audience. I’ve been pleased that a wide range of readers have responded warmly to the book.

C.M. MAYO: An unsung commodity turns out to be crucial for national defense. It seems to me there are many parallels to this, both in the past and the present. Can you talk about this a bit?

DAVID A. TAYLOR: That’s long been an interest of mine, especially commodities that come from nature. We’ve come to know that water can be a flashpoint for conflict and security. And many of us grew up hearing “Blood for oil!” as a shorthand describing the motivation for wars fought over petroleum reserves.

But other parallels today are less well known. One is an obscure ingredient in electronics like our cellphones: minerals called “rare earths.” Your cellphone contains just a tiny amount of rare earths, but they’re irreplaceable – and China holds practically a monopoly on them. That’s why the Pentagon recently issued a report saying rare earths are a matter of U.S. national security.

That’s a factor in the current trade conflict. It helps to know these things as world citizens. And for writers, I think that holds dramatic possibilities as well. 

C.M. MAYO: Can you talk about which writers have been the most important influences for your writing in general and for Cork Wars in particular?

DAVID A. TAYLOR: My reading taste has been shaped by so many wonderful writers of both fiction and nonfiction. It’s hard to keep to just a few. In fiction I’ve loved the works of Alice Munro, Grace Paley, Amy Bloom, George Saunders, Kate Wheeler, Chekhov, Tagore (stories), Borges, and Machado de Assis, the Brazilian master who combines wit and poignancy. In nonfiction I’ve been influenced by John McPhee, Rebecca Skloot, Isabel Wilkerson and others.

For Cork Wars, I was very impressed by a novel by Alan Furst called Dark Voyage, set during World War II and in the Mediterranean, in which the crew of a freighter (hauling a cargo of cork for part of the voyage) figures prominently. Furst evoked a world that’s noir and world-wise with vital characters, a combination I wanted for my book.

The other novel that I admired recently – it didn’t influence me because of when it came out – was Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach, which has beautiful writing and characters in that wartime atmosphere of New York harbor.

C.M. MAYO: You have been a consistently productive writer for many years. 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?

DAVID A. TAYLOR: Thanks, so have you! The digital revolution has had a huge affect on my process. Yes, the distractions – and even the requirements – of email and social media have cut a chunk out of my writing time. I still write in the mornings, right after I get up, and that helps. And at some point in the day I like to write on paper, for a different neural connection to work. But I wish I had more tricks for staying focused (apart from self-imposed deadlines).

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?

DAVID A. TAYLOR: Yes, I started writing on computers but printing out to review and revise. I’ve seen research findings that reading hardcopy can help foster focus on longform reading (and revising). So as much as I write and revise onscreen, I do also edit on paper. The visceral circling of passages to move around can be satisfying.

I also read my work aloud to get my ear involved in hearing points for improvement. 

C.M. MAYO: Organization… Keeping the research and working library all in order is a titantic task in writing a book of this nature. What were some of the things you did for this book that worked especially well for you? 

DAVID A. TAYLOR: It’s interesting – have you found your own process has changed with each book? Mine has. For my first book, I used index cards to map out scenes, chapter by chapter. Later books relied on folders on the computer.

This one was challenging in terms of structure – it took a while to find the braided structure woven in three strands, with three families. As the structure evolved, the way I sorted my text, interview transcripts and images shifted.

One strength in this story’s evolution was the rhythm of research and interviews, writing and revision. The research led me to people to talk with – including Frank DiCara at his home in Baltimore, and Gloria Marsa, the daughter of a man recruited for spying by the OSS. I spoke with her often by phone in Mexico City, where she lives. 

Those conversations in turn pointed me forward with search terms for more documentary research, which often yielded details that would be hard to recall, but that help the narrative.

C.M. MAYO: What’s next for you as a writer? 

David A. Taylor’s Soul of a People

DAVID A. TAYLOR: I’ve been encouraged by the response to Cork Wars and I think there are other formats in which the story and its characters can speak to us. In earlier work, I was fortunate to have partners for adapting my book about the WPA writers of the 1930s, Soul of a People, as a documentary and later as a feature screenplay (not yet produced, but it did get some nice WGA recognition). So I’d like to explore something like that with this story.

I also have several new projects. I’m in awe of the vision of August Wilson, whose Twentieth Century Cycle is so monumental. I love the idea of imagining a vast canvas, and carving it up by decade! On my own much smaller scale, I have my Thirties story with the WPA writers, and now Cork Wars in the 1940s. So I have a few more to go.

>>Visit David A. Taylor here, and check out this excellent trailer for Cork Wars:

Find more Q & As in the archive.

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>Your comments are always welcome. Click here to send me an email.

Q & A: Mary Mackey, Author of The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams,
On Bearing Witness and Women Writers’ Archives

Q & A: Sara Mansfield Taber on
Chance Particulars: A Writer’s Field Notebook

Notes on Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s
The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space
in the Nineteenth Century

Find out more about C.M. Mayo’s books, shorter works, podcasts, and more at www.cmmayo.com.

Meteor (Gival Press Poetry Award) to Launch at AWP

My book Meteor, which won the Gival Press Award for Poetry, and was orginally scheduled to be published in late 2018, has been delayed slightly; it will be out in early 2019. I’m thrilled to see the cover, designed by Kenn Schellenberg, and to announce that Meteor will launch at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Portland, Oregon this March. If you’re going to the conference, come on by my reading which will be part of Gival Press’ 20th Anniversary Celebration, and also to my booksigning the following day in the AWP Bookfair (details below).

Check out Leslie Pietrzyk’s interview with me about Meteor for her excellent blog, Work-in-Progress.

Visit Meteor’s webpage here. All of the poems in Meteor have been published, but only a few are online, among them: “In the Garden of Lope de Vega,” “Stay West” and “Bank.”

I’d be the first to say many of these poems could be considered flash fictions, and in fact, a number of them were originally published in literary magazines (e.g., Exquisite Corpse, Gargoyle, Kenyon Review), as fiction. But as I like to say, it’s all poetry– or at least, it should aspire to be.

March 29, 2019 Portland, Oregon
Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference off-site event
Hotel Rose
7 – 10 PM
C.M. Mayo, author of Meteor, to participate in Gival Press 20th Anniversray Celebration Reading. More details to be announced.

March 30, 2019 Portland, Oregon
Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference
Oregon Convention Center
Book Fair, Gival Press, Table # 8063
10-11:30 AM
C.M. Mayo will be signing Meteor.

Yep, I am still at work on the book about Far West Texas. I aim to post a podcast apropos of that shortly, however next Monday’s post– the month’s fourth– is dedicated, as ever, to a Q & A with another writer: David A. Taylor, who will be talking about his intriguing Cork Wars.

Meteor, Ambiance, Influences

Typosphere, Ho! “Stay West” on My 1961 Hermes 3000

From the Typosphere: “Bank”

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.

It Can Be Done! This Writer’s Distraction Free Smartphone (DFS), Plus an App Evaluation Flowchart to Tailor-Make Your Own

This blog posts on Mondays. Second Mondays of the month I devote to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. Welcome!

> For the archive of workshop posts click here.

You could leave it hanging in the tree in the backyard… not what I am recommending, however. Photo courtesy of MorgueFile.

SMOMBIE: It’s a word that popped up in Germany only in 2015. It’s hard to imagine now, but a decade ago, a scene, typical today, of smombies shuffling along city streets would have been but a cliché in a sci fi novel. But here we are.

When we lack the words to precisely describe something, it becomes difficult to recognize it, never mind debate and discuss it. Albeit some decades ago, the Digital Revolution burst upon us all, a series of tsunamis of such dizzying celerity that our vocabulary is still catching up. Only a few years ago a much-needed term was coined by Jake Knapp: “Distraction Free iPhone.” I came across the term when I read Knapp’s recent update on his experience here.

DISTRACTION FREE SMARTPHONE = DFS = defis

I’ll switch that last word from “iPhone” to “smartphone” to make it Distraction Free Smartphone, DFS for short. I did not think of my smartphone as distraction free until now, but for the past several years, that’s precisely what I have been moving towards, a DFS. Hmm, that sounds a mite snappier!

And I hereby tweak DFS to “defis,” which, I note, is the plural of “defi” which means “challenge” or “defiance.” Indeed, using a distraction-free smartphone is an act of defiance towards smombiedom.

BEYOND PRO OR CON

The magic is, this new word, DFS, or defis, nudges us beyond the rigid ping-pong of pro or anti-smartphone; forward-looking or old fogey. As I wrote in a recent post:

“The reigning paradigm is the same one we’ve had since forever: if it’s digital and new it must be better; those who resist are old fogeys. It’s a crude paradigm, a cultural fiction. And it has lasted so long a time in part because those who resisted either were old fogeys and/or for the most part could not articulate their objections beyond a vaguely whiney, ‘I don’t like it.’

“As an early adopter of digital technologies for decades now (wordprocessing in 1987, email in 1996, website 1998, blog 2006, podcast and Youtube channel 2009, bought a first generation iPad, Twitter 2008, and first generation Kindle, self-pubbed Kindles in 2010, etc.), I have more than earned the cred to say, no, my little grasshoppers, no, if it is digital and it is new it might, actually, maybe, in many instances, be very bad for you.

“In other words, adopting a given digital technology does not necessarily equate with ‘onwards and upwards’; neither does rejecting a given digital technology necessarily equate with backwardness. I so often hear that ‘there is no choice.’ There is in fact a splendiferous array of choices, and each with a cascade of consequences. But we have to have our eyes, ears, and minds open enough to perceive these, and the courage to act accordingly.”

Of course, when it comes to using digital technologies, different people have different needs, different talents, goals, obligations, opportunities, and vulnerabilities. A responsible mother with young children will probably want to use Whatsapp with the babysitter; a real estate agent who wants to stay in business needs to be available to clients, whether by phone, email or text– and so on. Some people slip into the vortex of addiction to social media or gaming far more easily than others…

My aim here is not to judge other people (although I’ll admit to some eye-rolling at smombies slapping themselves into streetlamps), but to examine the nature of digital technology and my own use of it. I am not a mother with young children, nor a real estate agent. Games bore me, always have. I am a writer of books. I blog about digital technology because first, it’s my way of grokking it; and second, I trust that what I’ve learned may be of interest to my readers– for I know that many of you are also writers.

We writers are hardly alone in the need for uninterrupted chunks of time. Brain surgeons, composers, painters, historians, statisticians, sculptors, software engineers… many people, in a wide variety of professions and vocations need, to quote Cal Newport, “the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task,” that is to say, engage in what he terms “deep work.”

“DEEP WORK”

Writing a book is deep work. And literary travel writing is especially demanding deep work. From my 2009 post on the nature of the genre:

“Literary travel writing is about first perceiving in wider and sharper focus than normal; then, in the act of composition, shaping and exploring these perceptions so that, as with fiction, it may evoke in a reader’s mind emotions, thoughts, and pictures. It’s not meant to be practical, to serve up, say, the top ten deals on rental cars, or a low-down on the newest ‘hot spas.’ Literary travel writing, at its best, provides the reader the sense of actually traveling with the writer, so that she smells the tortillas heating on the comal, tastes the almond-laced hot chocolate, sees the lights in the distant houses brightening yellow in the twilight, and, after the put-put of a motorcycle, that sudden swirl of dust over the road.”

Writers have always battled distractions, but with the ubiquity of smartphones, and increasingly sophisticated app designs and algorithms to lure us and trap us into “the machine zone,” we’re at a new level of the game– or the war, as Steven Pressfield would have it.

Whatever might or might not be an optimal use of digital technology for you, I know this:

A book that can claim a thoughtful person’s time and attention is not going to be written by someone who is pinged by & poking at their smartphone all the live-long day.

“OUT IN THE WORLD”

Some writers have outright rejected smartphones– but so few, in fact, that only two come to mind: John Michael Greer, a prolific blogger and author whose stance on modern conveniences is, as he titled a collection of essays on his vision of the post-industrial future, Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush; and journalist Sebastian Junger. As Junger said on the Joe Rogan podcast:

“when I’m out, I want to be out in the world. If you’re looking at your phone, you’re not in the world… I just look around at this– and I’m an anthropologist, and I’m interested in human behavior– and I look at the behavior, like literally, the physical behavior of people with smartphones and… it looks anti-social and unhappy and anxious, and I don’t want to look like that, and I don’t want to feel like how I think those people feel.”

While I say a quadruple “AMEN” to Junger’s comment, I decided to keep my smartphone because I value having the emergency information-access and communication backups enough to pay for the smartphone for that alone; plus, I much prefer using the smartphone’s camera and dictation app to having to carry separate appliances, and I use these often in my work.

For me, the question was never whether or not a smartphone is useful. For me, obviously it is. The question is rather:

How can I maximize the benefits of this sleekly convenient multi-tool / communications device, while blocking its djinn-like demands, and so with sharpest powers of observation and consciously directed concentration, stay awake in this world?

I had answered this question by turning my smartphone into a distraction free smartphone, as I realized when I read Jake Knapp’s post.

Knapp’s version of “distraction free” turned out to be different than mine– he deleted his smartphone’s Mail and browser apps, which I kept. And when I Googled around a bit to find other writers who had tried to convert their smartphone to distraction free– and they were astonishingly few– I found that each had a different version of distraction free. Some recommended using grayscale, which I did not find helpful– but you might. Again, no surprise, what works for one writer may not work for another.

And that got me noodling… over the year-end holidays, instead of going to the movies, I stayed home and made my App Evaluation Flowchart for a Custom Distraction Free Smartphone, which you will find at the end of this post.

THIS WRITER’S DISTRACTION FREE SMARTPHONE (DFS or “defis”)

In early 2019, here’s where I stand, comfortable at last, with my smartphone. My defis, as it were. In order of importance, I use my smartphone as / for a:

Camera
(for stills and video)

Audioplayer
(various apps for audio books, podcasts, and music,
which I usually listen to when flying or driving,
never when walking or on public transport)

Emergency Mail

Recorder (dictation app for interviews)

Google translator

Emergency telephone

Emergency Google Maps

Emergency Safari

Calculator

Flashlight

In essence, I use my smartphone only when I decide it will serve me for a specific purpose, e.g., to take a photo, make a call, record an interview. Otherwise, it stays in the charging station at home or zipped into its felt bag in my backpack, wifi off, roaming off. I do not allow it to beep, rill, cheep, chirp, ding, ping or vibrate.

Other than the above-mentioned apps, I have deleted all apps (except the ones Apple will not allow me to delete; those I corralled into a folder I labeled “NOPE.” Do not ask me what they are, I do not remember.)

No social media apps, no Whatsapp, no news, no games.

All– all– notifications are off.

About the smartphone as a phone: I make a call from the smartphone maybe two or three times a month. I never check voicemail. Ever. I don’t know how to check voicemail and don’t tell me its easy because I don’t want to know how.

Text messages? Not my circus, not even my planet.
[UPDATE: See This Writers Distraction Free Smartphone: First Quarter Update, April 8, 2019]

If you leap to conclude that I’m living the life of a Luddite you’d be wrong. I do make and receive plenty of phone calls– except for emergencies, on a landline. I Skype. I spend hours galore on email– but at my desk, on a laptop. On the laptop I also manage my website and blog. I podcast, too, editing the audio with GarageBand (listen in anytime here). And I film and edit short videos for my YouTube and Vimeo channels.

When I first got an iPhone nearly a decade ago, oh, did I fiddle with apps, apps for this and apps for that and apps that would confect a fairy’s hat! I was becharmed by apps! Ingenious things, apps are.

I was on FB, too, until 2015.

But I am a writer of books, and this smartphone rabbit-hole-orama, it wasn’t working for me.

THE TWO MAIN PULLS

For me, the two main pulls to pick up the smartphone have been:

(1) to see any messages from people and/or about matters I care about;
(2) to have something convenient to read / look at when I’m away from my desk and feel bored.

Once I had this clear, I could formulate a more effective strategy than vaguely “finding a healthy balance” or blanging down the anvil of will power.

Over the past several years, trying to figure this out, backsliding, and trying again (and again) to figure this out, what I have found actually works is to remove or minimize temptations to even look at, never mind pick up, the smartphone when it is not in my fully conscious and decided interest to do so; and crucially, I have replaced those “pulls” to look at the smartphone with what are, for me, either superior or at least realistically acceptable alternatives.

B.J. FOGG

B.J. Fogg of Stanford University’s Behavior Design Lab has been an influence in my thinking about the smartphone. His basic equation for inducing a behavior is Motivation + Ability + Prompt (all three simultaneous), or B = MAP.

You can read more about Fogg’s behavior model here.

He’s all very sunny and even uses puppets when talking about his behavior model and how it can help people improve their lives, and I for one sincerely appreciate this. But I suspect that people with darker designs (oh I dunno, like those starry eyed newbies with VC in Silicon Valley who would launch a platform / app that, with maximum speed and efficiency, sucks the life-hours, money, and data out of you) also look to professor Fogg as a guru.

What I’m saying is, more likely than not, you are being very, very cannily manipulated by any one of a number of apps to pick up and remain focused on your smartphone despite what you know perfectly well are your better interests.

And understanding the way in is to understand the way out.

THIS WRITER’S STRATEGIES

I don’t pretend that my strategies will work for other writers. This section is not meant to be a series of recommendations but an example: what works for me, a working writer. (If you want to go direct to the App Evaluation Flowchart for a Custom Distraction Free Smartphone, just scroll on down to the bottom of this post.)

(1) Focus digital communications on email, and always at the desk, on the laptop

This is, to-the-moon-and-back, the most powerful strategy for me. (Read about my game-changing 10-point email protocol here.) I take email very seriously. However, with rare, emergency-level exceptions, I check email only on my laptop, only after 3 PM, and I batch it. I thereby establish the boundaries I need to be able to do my work, and I can truthfully say, “I welcome email,” and “the best way to reach me is by email.” And if not perfect, I am ever better about responding to email in a timely manner– since I have relatively fewer distractions!

Many people have told me that they would prefer to communicate with me on FB or Whatsapp, but… too bad! I am a writer who writes books, which means that I need to funnel communication into specific times, not allowing interruptions to leech my attention willynilly throughout the day. If someone cannot summon the empathy to appreciate that, well, like I said. (Anyway, I love you guys.)

This strategy allows me to keep the smartphone silent and in the closet (its charging station) or zipped in its bag inside my backpack. In B.J. Fogg’s terminology, I have hereby eliminated the motivation, the ability, and the prompts to pick up the smartphone. So I don’t.

(2) When out and about, if there’s a chance of having to wait a spell, carry a paperback

Recent Reading:
J.M. Synge’s The Aran Islands
Ye, verily, of the time before Instagram
and TripAdvisor
(A classic of travel writing
and the Irish Renaissance,
and a reading cure for “the shallows”)
weighing in at about the same as a potato

This is the second most powerful strategy for me, and simple and old-fashioned as it is, it took what seems to me now an embarrassingly long time to figure it out.

I’ve always been an avid reader of books and magazines, but when I got an iPhone, suddenly, in spare moments, such as waiting at the dentist, in line at the grocery store, waiting for a friend in a coffee shop, I found myself pecking at it. I was reading, but… it was, in fact, more often skimming, watching, and surfing.

As Nicholas Carr explains in The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, reading a book and clicking & scrolling on a smartphone (from, say, website to website, to Twitter to FB to Whatsapp to YouTube to Instagram feeds x, then y, then z), do two very different things to one’s brain. The latter literally retrains your brain, resulting in what Carr calls “the shallows,” and once you’re in the shallows, tasks requiring sustained cognitive focus– such as writing a book– become ants-in-the-pants-nigh-impossible.

Don’t tell me I could use a Kindle app to read ebooks on my smartphone; I don’t and I won’t because, again, my goal is to remove as many siren calls to the smartphone as possible, relying on acceptable or superior alternatives. For me, a paperback provides a superior reading experience to an ebook; and if it’s not too heavy, I don’t mind tucking a real book in my bag.

But, by the way, I do read Kindles on occasion, using the Kindle app on my iPad, as a last resort only, when a paper copy is unavailable. I also use my iPad for reading news (which I inevitably regret), a select few favorite blogs, and for listening to audiobooks and podcasts in the kitchen. (If not in its charging station, or with me as I am doing something like say, folding laundry, my iPad remains parked on the kitchen counter.)

In B.J. Fogg’s terminology, with this strategy, I have reduced the motivation to pick up the smartphone. Also in his terminology, I build a tiny habit: when tempted to take out the smartphone to surf, take out the paperback. (You can watch Fogg’s TEDx talk on tiny habits here.)

(3) For a calendar, “to do” lists, and selected contacts, use a Filofax

This strategy is an old one for me, tried and true. As Getting Things Done guru David Allen says, “low-tech is oftentimes better because it is in your face.” The Filofax is a century-old British system designed for engineers that is so efficient it still has legions of devotees, among them myself, for over 30 years now. My lovely and ridiculously sturdy cherry-red leather Filofax normally stays next to my laptop on my desk; I can, but I rarely carry it with me.

As for contacts, I keep the addresses and telephone numbers I need at-hand in the Filofax and the rest in a separate system, but not on the smartphone because, again, I aim to focus my communications on email, and always on the laptop. (My smartphone does have emergency contacts.)

> Read my post about the Filofax for Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools blog.

In B.J. Foggese: For my to dos and calendar, I have no motivation nor prompts to pick up the smartphone.

(4) For an alarm clock use an alarm clock (and for a watch use a watch)

Back in the days of my starry-eyed wonderfest with apps, I downloaded three different alarm clock apps. The cornucopia of “alarms,” from harps to waterfalls to drums to roosters yodeling, that was fun. But I deleted them all and instead use a little plastic alarm clock powered by two AA batteries. It weighs almost nothing, cost less than ten bucks, and works just fine– so I can keep the volume on the smartphone on mute. Don’t tell me I could adjust the volume on the alarm clock app because I don’t want to touch the smartphone if I don’t have to, and certainly not as the last thing at night and first thing in the morning. And I don’t want the smartphone parked anywhere near where I sleep.

Ceci n’est pas mon réveil. Photo: courtesy matiasromero MorgueFile

This strategy might sound silly. How is the alarm clock app different than say, the calculator or the flashlight or the camera or diction app? The answer is, by definition an alarm clock distracts, it prompts me to pick it up to turn it off– and that is precisely what I do not want my distraction free smartphone to do.

This is not trivial.

In B.J. Foggese: another motivation, ability, and prompt to pick up the smartphone eliminated.

(5) Use paper maps

You read that right. People laugh at me. I laugh back! Sometimes I use a store-bought map but more often, before I go out, I’ve Googled on my laptop and printed out or sketched the directions. I do make use of Google Maps on the laptop and on my smartphone in emergencies– this is one of the reasons for which I keep a smartphone. But by relying primarily on paper, rather than GPS via the smartphone in realtime, I have removed yet another reason to pick up and start poking at the smartphone.

An added benefit, crucial for me as a travel writer, is that my sense of space, direction, and the lay of any given landscape have remained sharper.

(If you love the planet and believe everything paper should be digital, I would invite you to Google a bit to learn about the energy realities of server farms and what precisely goes into smartphone batteries.)

(6) Always carry a pen and small a notebook

Another opportunity to not pick up the smartphone.

(7) Make it a habit to keep the smartphone zipped inside its bag

I don’t make a habit of holding my smartphone in my hand, carrying it in a back pocket, or setting it down on the desk or table next to me. Unless it’s an emergency, or I have an excellent, fully conscious reason to take it out and use it, the smartphone stays dead quiet and out of sight in its bag inside the bag.

In B.J. Foggese, I thereby reduce my motivation, ability, and prompts to touch it.

IN CONCLUSION

My smartphone is now simply (albeit miraculously!!) a lightweight selected multi-tool (camera / recorder / audio player / caculator / flashlight) and emergency information-access and communications device which I carry when I go out of the house, unless it is to walk the dogs. (I never take it when I walk the dogs because when I walk the dogs, I walk the dogs.)

My smartphone does have Mail, Safari, and Googlemaps buttons, but because I rely on my laptop for email and other Internet access, and paper for out-and-about navigation, I no longer feel that pesky tug to pick up and peck at the smartphone– but I do have these apps available to me should I need them. And sometimes I do need them.

Ditto the telephone.

Again, and of course, what works for me may not necessarily work for you. But may this new term, Distraction Free Smartphone, or as I would suggest, DFS, or defis, serve you in thinking through your own concerns and strategies for your own smartphone and your own writing.

DFS MODE

I’ll add one more term: “DFS mode.” A smartphone need not be distraction free almost all the time, as mine is. Let’s say one needs to be available on Whatsapp, voicemail, email or to use some other app for family or work that may ping, ring or ding-ding you at random intervals, and so be it; then, for the time alloted for writing (or other deep work), one’s smartphone could be put into DFS mode. As I hope I have made abundantly clear, this would not necessarily be the same as “airplane mode.”

P.S. Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World will be out next month. From what I’ve read of his other books and blog, this promises to be a pathbreaking book. If nothing else, the term “digital minimalism” adds depth and nuance to our thinking about digital technology and our use of it.

[UPDATE: Check out Newport’s January 25th op-ed for the New York Times “Steve Jobs Never Wanted Us to Use Our iPhones Like This”]

[UPDATE: This Writers Distraction Free Smartphone: First Quarter Udate, April 8, 2019.]

App Evaluation Flowchart for your Own Customized Distraction Free Smartphone

# # # # #

> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

Q & A: Sara Mansfield Taber on Chance Particulars: A Writer’s Field Notebook

Email Ninjerie in the Theater of Space-Time

30 Deadly-Effective Ways to Free Up Bits, Drips & Gimungously Vast Swaths of Time for Writing: A Menu of Possibilities to Consider

Find out more about C.M. Mayo’s books, shorter works, podcasts, and more at www.cmmayo.com.


Synge’s “The Aran Islands” and Kapuscinski’s “Travels with Herodotus”

Warmest wishes to you, dear writerly readers, for a fabulously felicitous and swirlingly creative 2019.

With the new year two brilliant titles have just been added to my list of recommended literary travel memoirs: J. M. Synge’s The Aran Islands and Ryszard Kapuscinski’s Travels with Herodotus. The former is a classic of the Irish Renaissance published in 1907; the latter, the memoir / meditation of an extraordinary Polish international journalist of covering India, China, Africa and more in the 1950s and ’60s. Both of these memoirs were written well before the advent of smartphones and social media and in many ways reading them–and on paper– felt like… profound relief. I’ll have more to say about smartphones, social media, and literary travel writing in next Monday’s post.

Speaking of writing, I can scarcely believe it but in 2019 “Madam Mayo,” this veritable Methusela of blogdom, will celebrate its 13th year. And it has been blinking & beeping on my “to do” list for nearly all of these many years to take my own advice and get off of the Google platform onto self-hosted WordPress.

In the last days of 2018, I finally did it– but not exactly. Various research surfaris yielded the intelligence that blogger-to-Wordpress migrations oftentimes work smoothly but, perchance generate headache-inducing snafus. Moreover, there is a huff-and-puff of a learning curve for any new digital endeavor. Hence I plan to keep that ginormous olde blog parked right where it’s always been at https://madammayo.blogspot.com, while offering new posts (and reposting selected posts of yore, bit by bit as I see fit) at this WordPress self-hosted site, www.madam-mayo.com.

If you subscribe by email, I hope you’ll consider resubscribing from the new WordPress blog instead. (I think that button works over there on the sidebar; if not, it will soon.)

What can you expect from “Madam Mayo” in 2019?

Front and center, I’ll be bringing back the Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project, finishing up podcasts 21-24, as I continue to work on my book on Far West Texas.

As ever, I translate Mexican literature, so I’ll post news and links about those projects and writers as they become available.

My book Meteor, which won the Gival Poetry Prize for publication in 2018, will, after all, be published early this year, so look for some posts on poetry as well.

In addition, as in 2018, the second Monday of each month will be dedicated to topics for my writing workshop, and the fourth to a Q & A with a fellow writer. Next up is the intrepid David A. Taylor, author of Cork Wars.

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> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

Meteor, Influences, Ambiance

One Simple Yet Powerful Practice
in Reading as a Writer

Q & A with Novelist Leslie Pietrzyk on Writers Groups,
the Siren Song of the Online World, and on Writing Silver Girl

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.


José N. Iturriaga’s “Mexico in US Eyes” (México en las miradas de Estados Unidos)

With México en las miradas de Estados Unidos (Editorial Las Animas, 2017), Mexican writer and historian José N. Iturriaga has edited an anthology that is at once a vital scholarly contribution towards the history of Mexican and of US-Mexico relations, and an “armchair read,” as I like to think of those box-of-chocolate tomes one can dip into here and there, on some quiet afternoon (perhaps with a bit of a birdsong and by a burbling fountain…) In short, this is a book I will keep on an eye-level shelf of my working library, but also return to time and again just for the fun of it. (For this reason furnishings for a proper working library include an upholstered armchair and ottoman!)

For those who can read Spanish and have even an iota of interest in Mexico, México en las miradas de Estados Unidos is a must-have. Over 130 American voices are represented here, and of an astonishing variety, from the early 19th century to recent years, and of all sensibilities. To quote [my translation] from Iturriaga’s introduction, they are:

“traders and engineers, adventurers and sailors, explorers and historians, photographers and archaeologists, diplomats and journalists, novelists and miners, geographers and artists, poets and filmmakers, priests and planters, scientists, various soldiers, a comic and a president.”

That comic would be Groucho Marx, and the president, James K. Polk.

Many of these authors will be familiar to those who who have already read widely on Mexico in English:  Fanny Chambers Gooch, John Kenneth Turner, John Reed, Katherine Anne Porter, Alma Reed, William Spratling, John Steinbeck, William Burroughs, John Womak.

And I was delighted to see so many of my personal favorites, among them, pioneer trader and explorer Josiah Gregg, Princess Salm Salm (suffice to say, had Andy Warhol been alive in 1866 they would have been amiguísimos), Charles Macomb Flandrau, and my own dear amigo, the accomplished biographer and historian Michael K. Schuessler.

I am immensely honored to find my own work in such company, with an excerpt from my novel based on the true story of Mexico’s half-American prince, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire.

Although I have been reading on Mexican history for decades now, and in fact collect memoirs of Mexico in English, many of Iturriaga’s selections were new to me, for example, General John E. Wool, soldier Thomas Yates Lundie, traveler Maude Mason Austin, and more.

Read about José N. Iturriaga’s many works, including the recent Saberes y delirios, his fine novel about the incomparable 19th century naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, here.

Luis Felipe Lomelí Interviews C.M. Mayo

Reading Mexico: Recommendations for a Book Club of Extra Adventurious and Curious English-Language Readers

What the Muse Sent Me About the Tenth Muse,
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.

Top 10+ Books Read 2018

Another year of unusually intensive reading, mainly for my book in-progress on Far West Texas, hence this list is extra crunchy with geology, dinosaurs, Westerns, guns, and technology (yet somehow, like a pair of strawberry puddings amongst the platters of BBQ, Emma and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie slipped in there…)

1. Tie:

The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions
by Peter Brannen
Waaaaay before mushrooms… but psilocybin-esque. Science journalism at its tiptop best.

In the Shadow of the Machine: The Prehistory of the Computer and the Evolution of Consciousness
by Jeremy Naydler
The maintream mediasphere seems to be overlooking this book, and not surprisingly, for it has been published by a small press that specializes in esoteric subjects. If “esoteric” gives you the readerly “cooties,” well, chill, if you possibly can because Naydler’s In the Shadow of the Machine stands as major contribution to the history of both technology and consciousness. If you’re wading through any of the current best-sellers on the perils of too much screentime and AI and all that, fine and important as some of those works may be (more about Carr below), I would suggest that instead, for a more panoramic and penetrating view of the challenge, start with Naydler.

2. Tie:

Death Comes for the Archbishop
by Willa Cather
Historical fiction closely based on New Mexico and Church history but in all a soaringly lyrical work of empathic imagination. Deservedly one of the grand classics of 20th century American literature.

The Wonderful Country
by Tom Lea
> See my post “Notes on Tom Lea and His Epic Masterpiece of a Western.” The movie vs the novel? An uncooked cold hotdog as to a pile of Texas hot-from-the-BBQ brisket, and with a candied pumpkin for desert.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
by Muriel Spark
Sad, funny, sublime.

Emma
by Jane Austen
Ye olde read-it-by-the-fireside-with-a-cup-of-tea romance. But it’s a more serious work of literary art than it might appear; as a writer of fiction myself I found much to admire in Austen’s Emma. On that note, dear writerly readers, you might find of interest this piece in the Guardian.

3. Tie– and ideally read in tandem:

West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776
by Claudio Saunt
This will rearrange and reupholster all the furniture in the room in your mind you might call “the United States of America and the whole Roman-Empire-analogy thing.”
> See my review for Literal.

Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of North America
by David J. Silverman
It’s about “agency,” but it’s not about agency. It’s complicatedly complicated. A major contribution to the history of technology, economic history, and the history of North America.

4.

Four Arguments For the Elimination of Television
by Jerry Mander
Uniquely mind-bending.

5.

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: The Untold Story of a Lost World
by Steve Brusatte
Dino-out! Finally, the whole millions-upon-millions-upon-millions of years of dinosaurs falls into parade-like Ordnung! More fascinating stuff about T-Rex & Co. than I ever thought I would find fascinating! Super nerdy in the friendliest, most readable, and authoritative way. If you read one book on dinos, let it be this one.

6. Tie:

The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery that Fed the World But Fueled the Rise of Hitler
by Thomas Hager
Magnificent and disturbing.

The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century
by Wolfgang Schivelbusch
Marvelous and mind-bending. My notes here.

7.

Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
by Jaron Lanier
If you know who Jaron Lanier is, you can understand why he, and probably only he can get away with such a title for a commercially published book, one that most people today, and that would include writers with books to promote, would consider hoot-out-loud humbug. But perhaps they would not if  [continue reading]

8. Tie:

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
by Neil Postman

Technolopy: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
by Neil Postman

9.

Understanding Me: Lectures and Interviews
by Marshall McLuhan
> See my post, “Notes by Way of a List of Books, Videos, and more.“

10. Tie:

The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst
by Steven L. Talbott
From my “notes” post March 5, 2018:

Dense yet elegantly lucid, Stephen L. Talbott’s The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst was published by O’Reilly Associates in 1995, on the eve of the explosion of email, well before that of social media. Astonishingly, it delineates the nature of our now King Kong-sized challenges with technology, when those challenges were, so it now seems, but embryonic. And Talbott writes with unusual authority, grounded in both philosophy and his many years of writing and editing for O’Reilly Media, a prime mover in the economic / cultural juggernaut of a complex, increasingly dispersed from its origin in California’s Santa Clara Valley, that has become known as “Silicon Valley.” CONTINUE READING

Devices of the Soul: Battling for Ourselves in the Age of Machines
by Stephen L. Talbott

11.

The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us
by Nicholas Carr

12.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
by Nicholas Carr


I’m not where I want to be with my writing here at the end of 2018 and Carr’s works detail many of the reasons why. But I’m moving forward by having deactivated my FB, reduced Twitter to once-a-month-ish courtesy tweet for my Q & A with another writer; generally ignoring LinkedIn, and still– still! thumb cemented in the dike!– refusing to use Whatsapp.

But please know, dear writerly reader, that even as I wend my way, I would not pretend to know what would be best for you. And this the Matterhorn of the challenge of our time: digital technologies that might be zest for one person can prove hazardous for another. One needs both the fortitude and courage to evaluate one’s own path– taking into account one’s own circumstances, talents, weaknesses, predilections, obligations, and goals– then strategize, and restrategize as needed.

My sense is that, primed by Carr’s and others’ works in this vein, our cultural paradigm will definitively shift this winter with the publication of Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. Never mind what Newport actually has to say (though as a big fan of his Deep Work, I expect it will be juicy); in simply coining the term “digital minimalism” Newport helps us move towards richer and more effective ways of thinking about how, given our personal and professional goals and well-being, we can optimize our use (or nonuse) of digital technologies.

As I write now in December 2018 the reigning paradigm is the same one we’ve had since forever: if it’s digital and new it must be better; those who resist are old fogeys. It’s a crude paradigm, a cultural fiction. And it has lasted so long time in part because those who resisted either were old fogeys and/or for the most part could not articulate their objections beyond a vaguely whiney, “I don’t like it.”

As an early adopter of digital technologies for decades now (wordprocessing in 1987, email in 1996, website in 1998, blog in 2006, podcast and Youtube channel 2009, bought a first generation iPad and first generation Kindle, self-pubbed Kindles in 2010, etc.), I have more than earned the cred to say, no, my little grasshoppers, no, if it is digital and it is new it might, actually, maybe, in many instances, be very bad for you.

In other words, adopting a given digital technology does not necessarily equate with “progress”; neither does not adopting a given digital technology necessarily equate with backwardness. I so often hear that “there is no choice.” There is in fact is a splendiferous array of choices, and each with a cascade of consequences. But we have to have our eyes, ears, and minds open enough to perceive them, and the courage to act accordingly.

I wish my wiser self could have time traveled to tell my younger self, Be more alert to the ways you invest your time and attention. Be aware that the digital can be, in some ways and sometimes, more ephemeral than paper (and not necessarily ecologically so friendly, either). Social media mavens are not reading the kinds of books you want to write anyway, for they lack the time and the attention span. Social media “friends” may be but are not necessarily your friends; and until you try to communicate with and encounter them outside these networked public spaces, e.g., in the real world, and via one-on-one private communication such as snail mail, telephone, and email, you’re in a hall of mirrors. With almost every app, every platform, some corporation is harvesting your attention and data for shareholder value– and all the while conjuring up new ways to grab even more. Life goes by, zip.

Top 12 Books Read 2017

C.M. Mayo’s Book Reviews

Reading Mexico: Recommendations for a Book Club
of Extra-Curious and Adventurous English-Language Readers

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Luis Felipe Lomelí Interviews Yours Truly about “Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion” & etc.

This year the second Monday is dedicated to a post for my writing workshop students, except when not. This post is a “not”– or rather, not exactly; I would hope that my workshop students, and indeed any and all English-language readers, may find it of interest.

This interview was an honor, and a most welcome opportunity to say some things that have been looming ever larger in my mind.

P.S. Visit Luis Felipe Lomelí’s website here.

In the interview I also mention Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. I wrote about Sor Juana here and in my Kindle longform essay, “Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla.” John Campion was Sor Juana’s first English translator. You can read his translation of her magnum opus on his website, worldatuningfork.com, here.

TRANSCRIPT
(WITH ENGLISH TRANSLATION):

MEXICAN WRITER LUIS FELIPE LOMELÍ
ASKS QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH;
LA ESCRITORA ESTADOUNIDENSE C.M. MAYO
CONTESTA EN ESPAÑOL

DECEMBER 2018

LUIS FELIPE LOMELÍ: Where you were born and where have you lived?

C.M. MAYO: Nací en El Paso, Texas, en la frontera, pero crecí en el norte de California, la parte ahora conocida como “Silicon Valley.” He vivido en Chicago, Washington DC, y otros lugares pero puedo decir que he pasado el mayor número de años de mi vida en la Ciudad de México.

[I was born in El Paso, Texas, on the US- Mexican border, but I grew up in northern California, in what is now “Silicon Valley.” I’ve lived in Chicago, Washington DC, and other places, but at this point I have lived more years of my life in Mexico City than anywhere else.]

LFL: Your profession?

CMM: Soy novelista, ensayista, poeta y traductora literaria.

[I am a novelist, essayist, poet, and literary translator.]

LFL: What drove you to Mexico, to live in Mexico (where and for how long) and to write about Mexico, to embrace Spanish as part of your culture?

CMM: ¡El amor! Me casé con un mexicano, un compañero de la Universidad de Chicago, y recién casados vinimos a vivir a la Ciudad de México. Han sido 32 años, la mayoría de ellos en la Ciudad de México.

[Love! I married a Mexican, a classmate at the University of Chicago, and directly after we got married we came to live in Mexico City. We’ve been married 32 years now, and most of these years we have been in Mexico City.]

LFL: What do you think about U.S. immigrants that live in Mexico, what do they do there, why are they there? Do they chose particular places to live?

CMM: Conozco mucha gente como yo, que venimos a residir en México por motivos personales. Otras también han venido por motivos profesionales, por ejemplo en la academia, en los artes y en las actividades empresariales, en todo tipo de empresas. Por supuesto allí están las comunidades de jubilados y artistas, en lugares tales como San Miguel de Allende, Ajijic, Los Cabos, y demás. A mí me parece que les ha convenido venir a México porque el clima invernal es más suave, el costo de vivir es menor que en Estados Unidos, y también por la aventura. ¡Algunas personas tienen mayores aventuras que otras!

[I know many people such as myself, who came to Mexico for personal reasons. Many also come for professional reasons, especially in academia, the arts. And others for business, all sorts of businesses. Then there are of course the retirees and artists living in San Miguel de Allende, Ajijic, Los Cabos, and so on, and it seems to me that most of them have come south because the winter weather is better, it’s cheaper to live there than the U.S., and for the adventure. Some have more adventures than others!]

Los norteamericanos han estado viniendo a vivir en México desde hace mucho más de un siglo. En los 1840s empiezan a llegar algunos comerciantes a través del Santa Fe Trail, el camino que conecta la ciudad de St Louis, Missouri con el Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, esto es, el camino real desde Santa Fe hacia a Ciudad Chihuahua, Durango, Querétaro, y la Ciudad de México. Y después, en la segunda mitad del siglo 19, por ejemplo, muchos ingenieros estadounidenses vinieron a México, ingenieros de minas, de ferrocarriles, de petróleo. Periodistas, rancheros, hacendados, novelistas, hoteleros, misioneros. Y aún mercenarios. Por ejemplo, muchos estadounidenses lucharon en varias facciones de diversos conflictos en México, incluyendo en la Revolución. Y en algún momento inmigró un grupo de mormones. Otro de menonitas.

[Americans have been coming to live in Mexico for well over a century. We start to see a few traders coming to live in Mexico in the 1840s, coming down on the Santa Fe Trail, connecting St Louis, Missouri with the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, that is to say, the old royal road down to Ciudad Chihuahua, Durango, Querétaro, Mexico City. And later, in the  second half of the 19th century, many U.S. engineers came to Mexico—mining engineers, railroad engineers, petroleum engineers. Journalists, ranchers, planation owners, novelists, hotel owners, missionaries. And even mercenaries. For example, many Americans fought in conflicts in Mexico, including in the Mexican Revolution. At one point Mormons migrated into Mexico. And Menonites.]

Uno de los personajes de mi novela está basado en Alice Green, la hija de una familia prominente de Washington DC. Su abuelo fue un ayudante del General Washington en la Guerra de Independencia. En Washington ella se casó con un diplomático mexicano, Angel de Iturbide, quién era de casualidad el segundo hijo del emperador de México, Agustín de Iturbide. Ella y su esposo vinieron a residir a la Ciudad de México en los 1850s.

[One of the characters in my novel is based on Alice Green, who was the daughter of a prominent family in Washington DC. Her grandfather was an aide-de-camp to General Washington in the American Revolution. In Washington she married a Mexican diplomat, Angel de Iturbide, who happened to be the second son of Mexico’s Emperor, Agustín de Ituride. She and her husband came to live in Mexico City in the 1850s.]

Otra historia del siglo 19, muy diferente, sobre la cual estoy escribiendo actualmente, es la de los negros seminoles, quienes eran los esclavos de los indígenas Seminoles, originalmente de Florida. Pues si, es poco conocido pero algunos indígenas tenían, compraban y vendían esclavos de descendencia africana. Poco después de que el gobierno de Estados Unidos obligó a los Seminoles a mudarse a Territorio indio, los negros seminoles se escaparon, caminando a través del desierto de Texas hacia México. El gobierno mexicano les otorgó terreno en cambio de que los hombres ayudaran al ejercito mexicano en la persecución de  los apaches y otros indigenas nómadas en el norte de México. Con la conclusión de la Guerra Civil en Estados Unidos y la Emancipación de los esclavos, muchos de los seminoles negros migraron de regreso a Texas para hacer lo mismo, ayudar al Ejercito de los Estados Unidos en cazar a los apaches, comanches y otros indigenas nómadas en las Guerras Indias. Todavía existe una comunidad de los descendientes de los negros seminoles en Brackettville, Texas y otra en el norte de México.

[Another very different story, one I’m writing about now, is that of the Seminole Negros, who were the slaves of the Seminole Indians, originally in Florida. It’s little known but it’s a fact, some Indians kept and bought and sold slaves of African descent. Soon after the U.S. government forced the Seminoles and their slaves to Indian Territory, the Seminole Negros fled, trekking from Oklahoma over the Texas desert, into Mexico. In exchange for land, their men worked as scouts for the Mexican Army, which was hunting down Apaches and other nomadic indigenous peoples in northern Mexico; and after the U.S. Civil War, with Emancipation, many Seminole Negroes migrated back into Texas, to do the same work for the U.S. Army, in the Indian Wars. There is a community of the descendents of the Seminole Negroes in Brackettville, Texas, and another in northern Mexico.]

La inmigración de estadounidenses hacia México es una historia extraordinariamente rica y compleja, pues cada persona, cada familia tiene su propia historia. Es más, en México hay inmigrantes de varias partes del mundo.

[U.S. immigration to Mexico is an extraordinarily rich and complex history, or rather, many histories, for each person, each family has their own. Moreover, Mexico has immigrants from many parts of the world.]

LFL: What is your impression and/or conception about this cultural exchange?

CMM: En cuanto la comunicación intercultural entre Estados Unidos y México, yo diría que hay muchos enlaces, muchos acercamientos, mucho que tenemos en común, mucho que podemos celebrar, pero no es lo que podría ser. Creo que algunas razones de eso—algunas—tienen sus raíces por allá en el siglo 16, en la rivalidad entre la España católica y la Inglaterra protestante.

[As for US-Mexico intercultural understanding today, I would say there are many connections, many bridges, much that we all have in common, and can celebrate, but it’s not what it could be. I acually believe that some reasons for this—some— have their roots all the way back in 16th century, to the rivalry between Catholic Spain and Protestant England.]

Pero enfocamos en cuestiones literarias. Hoy, un elemento, el cual es tanto una causa como un síntoma de la falta de comunicación intercultural, es que relativamente pocos libros se traducen del español al inglés o del inglés al español. Como porcentaje de libros publicados es minúsulo. Como resultado, muy, muy pocos escritores mexicanos se conocen en Estados Unidos. Octavio Paz, quién ganó el premio Nobel. Carlos Fuentes… quizá Juan Rulfo… algunos pocos lectores en inglés han oído de Carlos Monsiváis, Elena Poniatowska, Angeles Mastretta, Ignacio Solares, para nombrar unos de los distinguidos escritores contemporáneos mexicanos cuyos libros han sido traducidos al inglés. La lista de nombres conocidos disminuye en un parpadeo.

[But to focus on literary questions. Today, one factor, which is both a cause and a symptom of problems with intercultural communication, is that relatively few books are translated from Spanish into English, or from English into Spanish. As a percentage of what original work is published it’s minuscule. As a result, very, very few Mexican writers are known in the US. Octavio Paz, who won the Nobel Prize. Carlos Fuentes…maybe Juan Rulfo…  a very few will have heard of Carlos Monsiváis, Elena Poniatowska, Angeles Mastretta, Ignacio Solares, to name a few of Mexico’s distinguished contemporary writers who have had books translated into English… The list of recognizable names dwindles in a blink.]

Y por cierto un escritor mexicano destacado quién debe de ser más conocido en inglés es Luis Felipe Lomelí.

[And by the way, an outstanding Mexican writer named Luis Felipe Lomelí should be much better known in English.]

En México cuando voy a una librería mexicana, en cuanto a libros de literatura traducidos del inglés, por lo general encuentro best-sellers, Harry Potter, y así, y quizá algunos clásicos. Shakespeare, por ejemplo. Ay, acabo de mencionar dos obras británicas. Edgar Allen Poe. Ernest Hemingway. Ahora que lo pienso, conozco un par de poetas mexicanos quienes les encantan los Beats, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac. El último grito en los 1950s. Hay muchos ejemplos per, a grandes rasgos, así es la situación.

[In Mexico when I go into a Mexican bookstore, as far as books of serious literature translated from the English, I generally find best-sellers, Harry Potter, and the like, and a few classics. Shakespeare, for example. Ha, I just mentioned two British works. Edgar Allen Poe. Ernest Hemingway. Now that I think about it, I know a few Mexican poets who love the Beats, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac. Hot stuff in the 1950s. There are many more examples but, in general terms, this is the situation.]

Podemos señalar el prejucio, la ignorancia, el conservativismo de los editores, pero podemos avanzar más por el camino de la comprehensión en reconocer, primeramente, que lectores—en todo el mundo—prefieren leer libros originalmente escritos en su propio idioma. Segundo, reconocer el gran sapo gordo del hecho de que la traducción literaria es cara. Y así debe ser, puesto que traducir todo un libro es una labor que requiere muchos conocimientos y mucho tiempo. Aún así, los traductores literarios ganen muy poco. Cuando traduzco poemas y cuentos cortos para revistas literarias, como la mayoría de los traductores literarios, no cobro, o más bien no recibo nada más que dos ejemplares de la revista. Lo hago como labor de amor, por lo general. Existen becas y otros apoyos, pero son escasos.

[We could point a finger at prejudice, at ignorance, at publishers’ conservativism, but we can go further down the road towards understanding by acknowledging firstly, that readers—all over the world— prefer to read books originally written in their own language. Secondly, there is the big fat toad of a fact that literary translation is expensive. And rightly so, because it takes a of skill to translate a book, and it takes a lot of time. Even still, translators are poorly paid. When I translate poems and short stories for literary magazines, like most literary translators, I usually do it for free, or I should say, I don’t receive anything other than a couple of copies of the magazine. I do it as a labor of love, usually. There are grants for literary translators, for publishing literary translations. But these are few.]

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Para mí, ésta historia nos dice todo: Tengo entendido que “Primero Sueño,” el magnum opus de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, la gran poeta mexicana del barroco, una monja quien fue una figura literaria monumental en las Americas del siglo 17, se traduce al inglés por primera vez hasta 1983.  Afortunadamente fue hecha por John Campion, un traductor y poeta excelente. El libro está agotado no bastante puedes Googlearlo y leerlo en su página web, worldatuningfork.com. John Campion, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

[Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. For me, this sums it up: “Primero Sueño,” the magnum opus of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexico’s great poet of the Baroque, a nun who was a monumental literary figure in the Americas, was first translated into English only in 1983. Fortunately it was by John Campion, a fine translator and a poet himself. The book is out of print but you can Google that up and read it on his webpage, www.worldatuningfork.com. John Campion, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.]

Mi mensaje para las escuchas de esta entrevista es que una manera en que tú, como lector, puedes mejorar la comunicación intercultural, es buscar libros más allá de los best-sellers, más allá de los libros que todo el mundo lee, y en especial, buscar traducciones. Por lo general las traducciones se publican por editoriales pequeñas quienes no cuentan con muchos recursos para hacer mercadotécnia. Si no tienes el dinero para comprar un libro, es probable que la biblioteca de tu escuela o universidad o tu biblioteca pública pueda conseguirte un ejemplar. Si no lo ves en su catálogo, no seas tímido, pregúntale al bibliotecario si lo puede conseguir mediante préstamo interbibliotecario o comprarlo para la biblioteca. No pierdes nada en preguntar. Podrías ser felizmente sorprendido.

[My message for those of you listening to this interview is that one way that you, as a reader, can help improve intercultural communication is to look beyond the books on the best-seller table, read beyond the books everybody else is reading, and in particular, hunt for translations. Translations are often brought out by small presses that don’t have much marketing muscle. If you don’t have the money to buy a book, your school, university, or public library can probably get you copy—if you don’t see it in their catalogue, don’t be shy about asking the librarian to get you a copy on interlibrary loan, or even to buy it for the library. It doesn’t hurt to ask. You might be happily surprised.]

Y si tienes ganas de hacer una traducción, que sea al inglés o al español ¡házla! Por supuesto, si la obra original se encuentra en copyright y quieres publicar tu traducción, es necesario conseguir el permiso.

[And if you feel moved to translate a text, whether into English or into Spanish, give it a try! Of course, if the original work is still in copyright and you want to publish it you will need to get permission.]

Como lector, tus esfuerzos son importantes. No todo el mundo lee libros, así que para mucha gente la lectura no les parece una actividad importante. Pero los lectores tiendan a ser gentes pensantes y de acción. Un libro, aún leído por poca gente, aún por una sola persona, tiene el potencial—el potencial— de un poder enorme. Un poder para cambiar el mundo. No exagero.

[As as reader, your efforts matter. Not everyone reads books, so it might not seem all that important an activity. But those who read books, they tend to be thinkers and doers, so a book, even if read by a few people, even by one person, holds the potential—the potential— for enormous power. Power to change the world. I do not exaggerate.]

En esencia, un libro es un pensamiento grande y complejo empaquetado en un recipiente hiper-eficiente capaz de llevarlo a través del tiempo y del espacio.

[A book is, essentially, a large, complex thought packed into a hyper-efficient vessel that can carry it across time and space.]

Déjenme regresar al ejemplo de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Si no has oído de esta monja del siglo 17, en este instante a través de tu laptop o smartphone, o aún mejor, yendo a la biblioteca, lee tantito sobre su vida, algunas líneas de su poesía. Con este pequeño esfuerzo, yo creo que cambia tu concepto de México, de mujeres y del mundo. Vas a llegar a tus propias conclusiones, por supuesto, pero tu mundo será ya diferente.

[Let me return to the example of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. If you have not heard of this 17th century nun, and you take a moment on your laptop or smartphone, or better yet, to go the library and read up a bit, and you read some lines of her poetry—just that little—I think your whole view of Mexico, of women, and of the world will change. You will draw your own conclusions, of course, but your world will be changed.]

LFL: And what was your intention or the goal you pursued in editing the Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion?

Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, edited by C.M. Mayo. Visit the book’s webpage here.

CMM: Es un retrato de México a través de la ficción y prosa de 24 escritores mexicanos, muchos en traducción por primera vez. No es un Who’s Who, un Quién es quién de los escritores mexicanos, aunque de hecho incluye varios escritores muy distinguidos. Más bien ofrece a los lectores en inglés una introducción a la deliciosísima variedad de la literatura mexicana y en México mismo: desde los puntos de vista cultural, social, regional. La meta fue ir más allá de los estereotipos.

[This is a portrait of Mexico in the fiction and prose of 24 Mexican writers, many in translation for the first time. It’s not meant to be a Who’s Who of Mexican writers, although it does include some distinguished writers, but rather, to provide for English-language readers an introduction to the delicious variety in Mexican writing and Mexico itself: cultural, social, regional. To blast beyond clichés!]

Armar el tomo fue para mí un reto nada fácil puesto que la mayor parte de la literatura mexicana contemporánea, por cierto la más visible, proviene de la Ciudad de México. No obstante, encontré varias obras espléndidas, por ejemplo, “La Dama de los Mares” por Agustín Cadena, un relato ubicado en la costa de Baja California, “Día y noche” por Mónica Lavín en Cuernavaca, y el relato de Araceli Ardón “No es nada mío” de Querétaro. Les invito a leer más en mi página web, www.cmmayo.com

[This was quite a job for me as editor because much of contemporary Mexican literary writing, and certainly the most visible, comes out of Mexico City. But I did find many splendid pieces, for example, Agustín Cadena’s “Lady of the Seas,” set in Baja California, Mónica Lavín’s “Day and Night” in Cuernavaca, and Araceli Ardón’s “It Is Nothing of Mine,” set in Querétaro.  I invite you to read more on my website, www.cmmayo.com.]

Gracias.

[Thank you.]

#

P.S. About looking for translations, whether from English to Spanish or Spanish to English: Here’s another book you could order, or ask your library to order: Ojos del Crow / Eyes of the Cuervo by Joseph Hutchison translated by Patricia Herminia.

Tulpa Max or, Notes on the Afterlife of a Resurrection

Reading Mexico: Recommendations for a Book Club of Extra-Curious and Adventuruous English-Language Readers

What the Muse Sent Me About the Tenth Muse, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.

Meteor, Influences, Ambiance

My book Meteor, which won the Gival Press Poetry Award, will be out in early 2019. I’m working on a brief Q & A about it, and this got me to noodling. One of the standard questions for any poet, any writer, is about their influences. I wrote many of these poems an eon ago; indeed, some are more than 20 years old. The most recent poem in the collection is from 2010. (Why did it take so long to publish? That would be another blog post. Suffice to say, I didn’t make much effort; I was more focused on writing an epic novel and a book about a book and the Mexican Revolution.)

Back when, I would have said that my main influences as a poet were, in alphabetical order, Raymond Carver, Harry Smith, Stevie Smith, Wallace Stevens, and W. B. Yeats. But I think that now, from this distant perspective of 2018, that in writing these poems I was perhaps equally influenced by James Howard Kunstler’s razor-sharp nonfiction, in particular, his The Geography of Nowhere, and by certain musicians prominent in the ’70 and ’80s– not only by their lyrics, but the physical ambiance they create, the trickster, shapeshifting way they pull down the astral by sound, rhythm, the masks of archetypes. In English, we lack vocabulary for this.

Two examples:

Laurie Anderson, “O Superman”:

The Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”:

“What Happened to the Dog?” A Story About a Typewriter, Actually, 
Typed on a 1967 Hermes 3000

“Silence” and “Poem” on the 1967 Hermes 3000

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.