And There Goes Another Wife . . .

I just finished The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser. What I found most astonishing about the events of 1500 C.E. was the willingness, the positive eagerness, with which various families backed certain matches. When any wife got shuffled off (divorced, beheaded), she didn't go alone; she had a tendency to take swaths of relatives with her as well as various political supporters. And yet, oh, well, there's one down; now, who else can we promote?

Of course, a modern reader has the benefit of hind-sight. We know that number three wife (Jane Seymour, who died in childbirth) is actually the exception to the rule. Yet, it should have been reasonably obvious by the time the king reached Katherine Howard (after Anne of Cleves, divorced, which debacle lost Cromwell his head) that it might not be the best idea in the world to have a pretty niece at court who might attract the king's interest.

Of course, there are some things people have no control over, and I'm willing to bet that when Katherine Howard caught the king's eye, her uncle (Earl of Norfolk) started practicing pre-execution speeches. (As a matter of fact, he survived her, but barely.) Nevertheless, at the same time, hanger-ons piled out of the woodwork, demanding kudos, rewards, estates, etc. etc. (it was the great age of patronage). And you'd think that a certain amount of uneasiness would have crept into the picture. That people would have, rather than running to attach themselves to this new, young and wholly reckless young woman, might have thought, "You know, I think I'll stay away from court for the next three years" (and probably some did).

Because it wasn't just Henry himself who encouraged the divorcing, beheading of his queens. Every queen was surrounded by supporters and detractors, and the detractors spent an enormous amount of time trying to figure out how to get the queen and her supporters locked up in the Tower. Kind of like if Kenneth Starr and the Clintons, instead of just holding legal proceedings and issuing press statements, had actually been trying to maneuver the other party in front of a firing squad.

But then, thinking of the Clintons and politicians in general, I decided that believing, "This time it will be different. This time, our queen won't do anything stupid to annoy the king" is what makes politicians tick. Otherwise, well, they wouldn't bother. But those who would willingly (and consistently) play such dangerous (and quite often, petty) games must believe at some basic level that they have got their finger on the pulse this time.

It makes me very grateful for us boring middleclass types who just go to work and pay our taxes. Idealists and politicians may get all the credit for making history interesting, but at least the middleclass survivalists keep history going.

CATEGORY: BOOKS

The Thesis I'm Not Writing

I first considered writing a thesis on the three CSIs but I wasn't sure my professors would really go for 100 or more hours of television as a primary resource. I also would have had to come up with a lot of guff about regionalism and identity and although I can do that sort of thing for a space of a blog, I can't do it for much longer. (Eventually, I find myself just making stuff up. "As a region coalesces its imaginative pre-figurations in its attempts at self-expressive identification, regionalism is formed . . .")

Basically, if I were to write a thesis about the three CSIs, I would begin by noting that they are all filmed in LA, but all utilize very different images. I would go on to ask, "Is this how Americans perceive these different locations?" (This is the kind of question professors ask, rather than, Is this what these locations are really like? Because if you answer the last question, "Yes," *zap* no more thesis.)

For example, CSI: Miami is all bright, glowing sunlight. Everyone is always squinting. The CSI lab is made of glass through which the glowing, bright sunlight reflects and refracts; the lab is filled with shiny objects upon which the sunlight glitters. CSI: Las Vegas uses darkness in almost the same way: long shadows, dark punctuated by flashing lights. Their lab is a low-ceilinged warren with a circular format.

And in CSI: New York, it is always raining. Or at least, overcast. Gloomy with occasional afternoon sunlight that never seems to reach the ground. And the lab is a warehouse.

The first question, as noted above, is, Is this what Miami, Las Vegas and New York are really like? Well, possibly. The second question is, Is this how most people perceive these various cities: are the producers digging into some deep, Jung-like American concept of Miami, Las Vegas and New York? If you gave Americans Rorschach-like tests and asked, "What is the first word that comes to mind when you hear Miami, Las Vegas and New York?" would they say, "Sun," "Night on the town" and "Rain"?

Possibly. Those sociologists and humanists who have been brainfried by Marxist theory, will tell you that television reinforces (or creates) these images, but I think it is far more likely that the producers chose such images to create the impression of a place, enabling the suspension of disbelief. (Because, after all, Miami is not the same thing as New York.) We are, as the audience, supposed to believe that Caruso, Sinese and Petersen never, ever see each other. Of course, our (supposed) ignorance makes us pawns of evil mass media. But since it is only supposed, I don't really think it is much of an issue. The point is, fiction doesn't work at all if you keep looking at the scaffolding. And despite the attempts of higher education to turn everyone into skeptical literalists, it would be a pity for the arts.

In any case, I think the producers, writers, directors, etc. believe that Americans have an idea of region that the shows/episodes then play on. Which is pretty fascinating in its own right. It means that Americans associate rats, sewers, rain, sidewalk artists and art crimes with New York; sun, hurricanes, boats, drugs, drugs, drugs and hotel crimes with Miami; night, gambling, serial killers, weird families and bugs with Las Vegas (although the latter has more to do with Grissom than with Las Vegas). And who is to say Americans are wrong?

The second fascinating thing is that although the shows are similiar in many ways, and although a truly awesome amount of each episode takes place indoors, the overarcing image (this is Miami, this is New York, this is Vegas) is retained mostly through light: the amount of glittering sunlight, absence of sunlight and damp sunlight in each episode. Each show carries a tone, of sorts. It could also explain why I can't get into CSI: New York, no matter how hard I try. I mean, rain? Dampness? Oblique sunlight? It's all very atmospheric, but I just can't get excited about it. (Of course, I live in the Northeast so I see it everyday.)

CATEGORY: TV

CDs v. Cassettes and other things

So, on the subject of previous rantings, and at the risk of sounding like a Luddite, I much prefer audiocassettes to CDs. I listen to a lot of books on tapes, and CDs leave a lot to be desired in this category. You can't, for instance, take them out of one machine and put them in another and have them start from the same point. It's harder to fast forward to a specific spot (I realize this has more to do with my machine than the available technology). As a teacher, I prepare a lot of material at home, and then take it in to the college where I use the available machinery there. It's a real pain in the neck to do this with CDs (with DVDs too, but I really like DVDs, despite the whole widescreen issue). Instead of just sticking the thing in and hitting play, I have to put it in, find the correct track and then, often, fastforward within that track to the right location (or, if the machinery is dated, listen to the track until it gets to the right spot and hit pause). The beauty of audiocassettes is you don't have to do that. You can cue to a very precise position on, say, a Wednesday, and still have the stuff ready to go on Friday.

I think the solution (and again, the technology appears to be out there, I just don't have it) is to create systems where you can mark your place on a DVD or CD. The only problem there is, like rewinding, the renter has to remember to unmark the DVD or CD before returning it to Netflix or the library or wherever. Otherwise, the next person who watches it will be carried instantaneously to the scene with Frodo and the eagles or the blowing up of some ship or whatever.

On a completely different subject, does anyone actually read the blurbs on the backs of books? Not the summaries but the parsed out quotations of reviews by famous people? I don't think I've ever bought a book in my life based on those quotations. Perhaps, they're like eye candy. We expect them to be there, but nobody actually reads them. In any case, what do we expect them to say? "This book is kind of good but I didn't care for the middle." Or, "Read this book only if you have absolutely nothing else to do." Maybe the quotes do say that, and nobody reads them closely enough to know it. (Actually, occasionally I have looked to see who, rather than what, reviewed the book, but that's usually after I've already started it.)

CATEGORY: FARES

Title of Blog

Yes, I have once again changed the title of my blog! When I first began blogging, I called this site The Anti-Angst. I then changed it to The Consumer. It would probably still be The Consumer, except that Blogger has suddenly developed a distrust of my legitimacy. (I think they think I'm a mass-advertising site.) And I was getting tired of the name anyway.

The phrase "votaries of horror" comes from a 1946 review of The Duchess of Malfi by Brooks Atkinson (New York Times). I ran across it during my research for my thesis. It has a nice ring to it. It isn't as clever as many (check out my friend Mike's blog for a good title) but I might actually stick with it for awhile, this time, since it dovetails with my current line of research. Unless I start getting angry letters from Stephen King fans looking for thoughts about gore, not a bunch of rants about academic institutions. (Which isn't to say I won't discuss horror, the genre, at some point, just not a whole lot.) "Votary" refers to a dedicated student (there is a religious connotation as well). Brooks Atkinson used it in his article (and I use it in my thesis) to refer to a devoted fan, someone who really, really loves something for the sake of itself.

CATEGORY: INTRODUCTION

Rant about Widescreen v. Fullscreen

It has to be said: now that I have a larger television, I still don't like widescreen. Having a larger television does make the widescreen experience less tiny-little-ants-on-a-plain-ish, but I still enjoyed my fullscreen viewing of The Matrix far more than my widescreen viewing. It was much more exciting, in-your-face.

Fact is, I don't really get widescreen. I'm not in the theatre; I don't need to pretend that I am! Yet whenever I go to videostores, all I can ever find is widescreen format. Are all the fullscreens checked out? Is this some weird little tic on my part, that the rest of the world doesn't share? Or, on the other hand, is the whole widescreen fetish perpetuated by the film industry that thinks this kind of thing is really, really important and doesn't realize that most people would prefer fullscreen? Is it the kind of thing where "real" aficiandos can't admit that they detest widescreen? I don't know. But I wish that all this cool DVD technology would mean that ALL DVDs were issued in both formats, rather than just a few here and there.

CATEGORY: MOVIES

The Wonder of Proof (thank you white males)

CASE 1: When David Irving brought his libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt, Deborah Lipstadt's lawyers hired the historian Richard J. Evans to examine David Irving's history books about Hitler and Dresden and World War II. In his examination, Evans and his assistants discovered that Irving had consistently misread, misinterpreted, misquoted and deliberately obscured the documentation upon which his books were supposedly based. Evans was able to do this because he traced back the many, many footnotes in Irving's books to the written documentation (letters, municipal documents) itself.

CASE 2: The Salem Witch trials were ended by the same culture in which they began. As the trials went on and on and more and more people were accused and hanged, Puritan ministers and lawyers began to speak their doubts. They believed in witches, but they weren't too keen on the methods by which witches were accused--namely, oral testimony. Where's the proof? they said. Where's the evidence? Eventually, these skeptics were heard, a new set of judges was appointed, and the trials ended.

I give these two cases to illustrate the importance of the academic, scholarly, educated concept of proof and secondly, the importance of written documentation. This is an ongoing argument in my master's program. This week, we read Henry Glassie. Henry Glassie has some interesting things to say but, as I foresaw, the statement that everyone fell on was not Glassie's call for historians to be vigorous, ongoing and dynamic in their scholarship but his statement that, heaven help us, histories are "either all history or all folk histories." That is, both academic history and oral history (or folk/myth history) string together narratives from the facts available. Ergo, they are the same, should be treated the same, and given the same weight.

I and one other student argued against this. I am not disputing that history (as it is told and taught) doesn't involve a narrative. Neither will I dispute, as one student pointed out, that oral histories (like academic histories) are both trying to be truthful, that both have checking systems, that both come out of particular cultures, that both change over time. Neither will I dispute that academic, written history--thank goodness--has more weight or power than oral history. What I did dispute was the expectations or process to which either is submitted. What I could not communicate (which is, frankly, why I'm trying to do it here) is that confusing the two does not, in the long term, aid either one.

If all histories are one then Irving's oral testimony of his own good intent bore as much weight, if not more, than his misuse of written documentation. The historians in that trial were only able to undermine Irving's claims because they could access written documentation that could be disputed, argued over, debated, re-interpreted and checked. This is almost impossible to do with oral testimony. One student argued that students are taught to take anything written as automatically true. I have a difficult time replying to people who say things like this, because I am afraid I will say something nasty like, "Well, stupid people do." Stupid people also believe anything that is said to them, simply because it is said. Good historians question what is written, who wrote it and why, just as any of us do about an oral tale. That doesn't undermine the superiority (historically) of a written text, which can be brought forward and studied, over oral testimony which morphs, through time, beyond recognition (the other student actually made this argument).

The fact is, if all histories are one, then the oral testimony of the accusers in Salem Witch trials had as much bearing as the requirement of proof. Vice versa--which no one seemed to realize--if all histories are one, then I have as much right to demand empirical proof from folk histories as I do from academic histories. If the standard is the same, then oral folk histories (which have, in general, a different purpose and standard from academic histories, despite the occasional similiarities) could be submitted to the same requirement of proof. I mention this because it is the latter demand (that folk histories submit themselves to rigorous scholarly approval) that upsets pro-oral history folks. But, by insisting that the one is as historically valid as the other, they are causing this confusion to take place. I am not declaring that oral histories and folktales are unimportant; I am myself a big fan of folktales, myth and faith-based theologies. But I don't demand, unlike the creationists, that faith-based theologies be submitted to the same standards of empirical and historical proof as science and history and, even, critical theory. In my mind, this preserves both from degredation. I also believe that the importance of empirical and historical proof can never be understated. We thrive as a culture because of it. Western civilization is very flawed and makes many mistakes; but it also progresses, improves and fixes itself due to the demand that one must have evidence, proof, written or artifact, that other people can see and discuss.

Otherwise, in the end, the only people who will win are the people whose political side (whether academic or oral) happens to be winning. (And frankly, I sometimes think that is all the relativists want: to win.) For instance, the requirement of proof (in America) arises out of a white, patriarchal, academic cultural mindset and that seems to be enough reason to despise it. Our class on Tuesday was filled with statements like, "All histories are cultural constructions." When I put forward the idea that yes, alright, every historian speaks out of a particular frame of mind so we need to study written histories over time, I was informed that past histories were written by white males. The impliciation was that such histories are too narrow to be of any worth.

If I thought this cavalier attitude towards proof/the past/written documentation and knowledge was in the ascendent, I would get really depressed. But I don't think it is. I've noticed in younger scholars a vague contempt for the relativism and self-importance of this "we can't really know anything" attitude. They know they can't be completely objective, but they aren't willing to abandon the idea of standards or of a canon--the idea that some books are better than others, that some histories are more accurate than others. They aren't willing to throw all power into the hands of the "nobody knows the truth" relativists, who want to dismiss the burden of proof as male, white, patriarchal and power-hungry. As Cynthia Ellter points out in her book The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, feminists hurt themselves more than male culture when they promote an imaginary past not as lore (which would be acceptable by the standards of lore) but as a history (which is not acceptable by the standards of academe) that ought to be believed in as history. If that is the best feminists have to offer, and if they continue to insist that "good" feminists ought to accept this kind of relativist tryanny, I'll stick with patriarchy, thank you very much.

CATEGORY: HISTORY & LEARNING

Rejection and Criticism

I've received many rejection notices throughout the years. I'm going to list various types of rejection letters, favorites to least favorites:

The best, of course, is the personalized note--the handwritten scrawl across the bottom of the form letter or, if you're really lucky, a personal typed letter. These fall into two categories: one, an explanation for why the story wasn't accepted; two, an apology for not taking the story even though the editor really, really liked it. Of the two, the first, believe it or not, is best. As my brother Eugene says, regarding the second, "My ego thanks you, but I'd rather be paid." Still, both are way up there. The first time I got a personalized note from an editor, I was as happy as if I'd got an acceptance. It was a fairly prestigious magazine (for me), and I floated around on Cloud 9 for days.

The second best, which I didn't used to like, is the form letter with boxes. The editor(s) check the boxes that apply: Not Enough Description; Boring; Not For This Magazine. I've learned to appreciate feedback, although I know it isn't always possible; besides, I always like to make sure the Totally Horrible Writing box isn't checked.

The next is the ordinary form letter. I mention this because, in comparison to the last, I don't mind it as much.

The personalized form letter: now, most form letters say something like, "We're sorry we can't use your story. Try us again. We apologize for this form letter," and that's fine, but I get a bit ruffled when the form letter says something like, "We read your story, Katherine, and although we enjoyed TITLE OF STORY, we won't be using it this time around." The first time I got one of those, I thought it was a personal note. Yes, okay, call me naive. After I received the third one, I realized that it was a form level with a clever assistant. (Merge is an amazing feature.) They really annoy me. I'd rather just have the editor say, "You're a cog in our machine," then pretend they know me, like sales people who want to buddy up to you on the phone. Just tell me about your product. If you can't tell me about your product in ten seconds, if you're just going to ask me how I'm doing, forget it.

The final type of rejection letter is a personal rejection letter; however, this kind of personal rejection letter is different from the types mentioned above. At this point, I have to digress and talk about literary criticism. I believe one of the most important jobs of literary criticism is figuring out what the author intended to do. That intent then becomes the standard by which the piece is judged. In other words, it is foolish (if interesting in a bizarre way) to criticize Tolkien's Lord of the Rings for not involving aliens and spaceships or successfully describing submarine warfare or pronouncing judgment on class warfare. (Where's the feminist message?!) Not only should critics look for the author's intent, they should also look at the author's work as a whole. This means that it is also pointless to criticize Tolstoy for killing off Anna Karenina (spoiler, I know, but really, you ought to know that) or Kafka for turning his protagonist into a cockroach, rather than a snake.

In other words, literary criticism should never be about what the critic thinks the story ought to have been about. It should be about whether the author succeeded at what he or she was attempting to do.

To return--the personal rejection letter that I don't care for is the personal rejection letter which isn't about my story as a whole and whether it succeeded or not or, even, where it was flawed; rather the personal rejection letter I dislike is the one which wants to take issue with me for calling a character Bob intead of Billy, or for employing a certain theme, or for delivering a particular outcome. If you don't like it, says I, don't buy it.

This isn't to say that I'm opposed to the magazine editor saying, "Well, really, you know, we prefer happy endings" or "Well, really, you know, we prefer sad endings where everyone dies and life is hopeless and there's angst dripping from the ceilings." That's fair. Magazines have certain audiences and certain self-perceptions. But there's a difference between saying, "We prefer angsty endings, and you don't have one" and saying, "You ought to change the pleasant hero into a Bryonic sociopath. That will make it so much better."

This final type of personal rejection letter inevitably involves blatantly condescending sentences. I have received brutal rejections of stories, but none of them are as bad as the condescending rejection letter which smugly informs me that I'm a good little writer in my way and here's some suggestions (which would completely alter the theme and plot of my piece) which will make me so much better. In many cases, the critic completely misses my real failures as a writer--namely, slow beginnings, a dearth of description and a failure to close the story down--and instead mistakes my plot choices as good or bad writing. (Like critics who mistake the appearance of magic in a story as bad writing, simply because they don't care for all that fantasy genre stuff.)

But then, I will say, that I think good critics--who can put themselves in your shoes and try to look at what you are attempting to do from the inside--are hard to find. It truly is a skill, like writing or sculpting or whatever.

In any case, I never, never complain. (To the editors, I mean.) I'm a poor artist, but I don't consider myself especially beleagured. I don't think the world is against me--if only the publishing world knew it, they are missing out on the NEXT BEST THING since Rowlings (or, in my case, C.J. Cherryh). I'm more literary than Rowlings, but I don't think I could pull off her sense of immediacy. And I know I'm not a better writer than Cherryh. Eh, if it happens, it happens. There's always someone out there looking for fame and fortune. It might be me this round. It might not.

CATEGORY: FICTION