Dave | unobtrusive lucidity

DIY?

A long time ago, I took an issue with pop music. I wrote a piece for my regular op-ed column with a newspaper at the time about Britney Spears…not in the way that many mocked her, because I don’t want to do that. I was just pointing out that her music was…well, vanilla. Generic. I proposed that playing one of her CD’s and finding where one song ended and the next began would be quite a challenge, because they all sounded the same.

I think that’s the issue with popular culture, is that it plays to the lowest common denominator as far as taste in concerned. For some reason that I can’t fathom, many want only to listen/read/view what’s popular, without probing hidden gems out there that aren’t on the pop culture radar but that have a great deal more substance.

I bring this up because I’m interested in the self-publishing phenomenon. When I finish my current project (the novel I keep talking about here and slowly making progress toward…I think I’ll have it finished by the year 2085 at my current pace), I plan to self-publish. I may change my mind later, but right now I want to go that route. I love how easy it is for authors and artists and photographers and musicians to get their work out there for others, without getting a big business in the middle.

And, for all of us creative types, that’s ultimately what we want: to get our work out there, and hope it impacts others’ lives. Financial success is typically secondary to that.

Still, I wonder what the end result would be if we removed the gatekeepers…that is, traditional publishing houses…from the picture altogether? I say that because sometimes I think we need educated people with good taste working to put high quality literature out there, and keeping some poor quality fluff away from us. Honestly, with so much pop culture vibe going on out there, I’m not sure that the literature that receives the most reviews to become popular would be the highest quality literature. Which would lead one to be concerned that the high-quality stuff would go largely un-noticed after a while.

And, we can’t ignore the fact that some work becomes popular because it’s of such high quality. A Visit From the Good Squad is a great example. This is true for all mediums of artistic expression, as well: U2 has been one of the most popular bands in the world for some time, because of the originality and quality of their art.

As far as publishing is concerned, I’ve heard many say that traditional publishing will never go completely away, and I’m sure that’s true. I think, though, that we’re only years away from having it fade to the background, just as record labels will, I suspect, and perhaps motion picture producers, as well. So what does that mean? How does it impact the overall quality of the literary landscape? What really makes me curious is how it will impact the world of academic publishing, where the review of others in the discipline is absolutely paramount in determining acceptable quality, which in turn has a direct impact on the quality of education that we all receive.

I love watching these changes take place. I’m really interested, and hopeful, that they always take us forward culturally and creatively.

I’m A Person, Not A Sale

*Press the rewind button*

I am in college. I am younger, less experienced, and more naive about the world. I am looking for something that I can call a professional position before I even graduate, because I’m tired of the restaurant job I’m doing to make ends meet so that I can be a full time student. I have an old teacher from my home town use this and try to explain the concept of selling this private long distance calling service to others. My dad likes the idea. We buy in (since when do you pay someone to be employed? These are things that you learn in life). We try it together for a month. We bail quickly after making back our initial investment.

*Press the fast forward button*

A friend tries to get me sold on the idea of selling Melaleuca products. I remember this type of experience from my undergrad days with the long-distance calling thing. I politely decline. They push. I eventually agree to go to a meeting, knowing in advance that I’m going to say no (I had learned from past experience, but not quite enough). When I say no, the friend becomes irritated with me.

*Press the fast forward button again*

I have just moved to the city in which I currently live (for another week and a half, at least) for grad school. I’m filling my car up at the gas station, when the guy at the pump across from me strikes up polite conversation with some small talk (that happens in the Southeast…you get used to it). Within four sentences he is asking me if I like to make money. Having learned from past experiences (see above), I can smell what he’s doing, and I shut him down quickly, pay for my fuel, and leave.

*Return to present, where we re-join a work day already in progress*

I stop by a colleague’s room to say hello. We chat for a few moments about my coming move. She hands me a business card for a nutritional program that she has tried, and with which she has become so enamored that she is now trying to sell. I’m polite enough to keep my mouth shut and only adopt a glazed look in my eyes. I toss the business card quickly upon leaving her room.

I really, really, really have an issue with this stuff, and I’m so glad that I learned quickly that it’s either all-consuming, or a dead end. I’m no salesperson, because I don’t like seeing people as sales targets. They’re people, not objects. Thus, for me it was a dead-end.

I know people who make their living with this stuff, and I see it consume them, because a huge percentage of conversations that they have with others end up as a pushy attempt to sell their product. Soon, you stop believing that they have any legitimate interest in talking to you at all, but are rather either selling something, or trying to maintain a relationship in order to sell something later.

My attitude about this is that people can find this stuff out there if they want it, whether it’s natural household cleaners or long-distance services (I guess some people still use landlines?). The more you push your product onto me, the less likely I am to even consider purchasing what you’re selling. If I am your friend, then I expect you to see me as a person, not a potential sale.

That is why the business world as it currently exists de-humanizes all of us, because it is no longer your friend owning a business that you can go visit when you want to buy hardware or a good meal. This is your “friend” coming to you to harass you into buying something. This approach reduces our value as people to what we are willing to pay, and there’s certainly enough of that mindset already in our country.

I’m a person, not a potential sale. It would be groovy if we all saw each other in that way.

*Stop*

The Nature of a Hero: Behind the Scenes

Those most interesting conversations always seem to happen over coffee when you least expect them.

A friend of mine and I were talking about acting, and the way in which actors can become absorbed in roles to the point of the character beginning to take over. During my undergrad, my training in acting was strongly oriented toward the method-acting school of thought. I’ve experienced the very thin line while acting in which the character truly begins to come to life, and I know that sort of frightening moment when you’re balancing between keeping control yourself instead of permitting the character to take control. Those are the moments in which the performance in the most alive, but also the moments that I honestly believe are the reason that many actors I’ve known and worked with…at least ones that follow this school of acting…sort of aren’t well. Ideally, that’s why actors take breaks…sometimes long breaks…between roles. I haven’t acted in two years after my last serious role, and I remember having to take a long amount of time off after several consecutive roles during college.

Our conversation turned toward the canon of Batman films, and the tragic circumstances of Heath Ledger’s untimely demise following the filming of The Dark Knight. We talked about the discussion that circulated about how the darkly insane character that he performed so astoundingly in that film may have held too much sway over him.

Specifically in the context of super-hero films, this discussion leads to an interesting thought. The most important thing in a story is the through-line, or the overall plot arc. We talked about how difficult it would be to act a role like the Joker, but how it would be so important to do it well, because of the importance of the redemptive message contained within the film as a whole. In that way, the actor portraying the villain is embodying the nature of a hero by being self-sacrificial in order that the greater good may be told…a real-life example of how a hero places his own good below those he or she is serving.

I think that’s one of those opportunities that all of us have to be a hero, and why the inspiration of super-hero mythology is so important to us as a culture.

Special Edition: The “Lucky Seven Challenge”

For your weekend reading pleasure, I’m doing something that I don’t usually do. This is a meme in which I was tagged by fellow-author and blogger Michelle Davidson Argyle. The deal with this is that she tagged several writers to do the following: select page 7, line 7 from your current work-in-progress, and then post the next 7 lines of dialogue.

You’d think that would be fun and easy, but I pulled up my manuscript on the iPad that evening and found the selected passage, and it would have been…well, awkward. So I re-visited it this morning, only to find that the canonical soft-copy on the desktop version of Pages calculates page numbers differently than the iPad version of Pages. This time it would be…well, not awkward, but…

In any case, I’m bending the rules a bit, but here’s something from page 7 of the work-in-progress:

“I was going to give the lady’s purse back. That was my whole point. But it scared the hell out of me that I did that. So I just ran. Left him screaming in the alley.”

“I think anyone would have done the same thing.”

“Yeah, well…I haven’t done any super-heroing since.”

Interested? I hope so! I’m still 100 + pages away from finishing the project, so I should get back to work on that. Happy Saturday, and thanks, Michelle, for tagging me in this!

I Don’t Like Facebook, But I’m Not Suspicious

Susan Cain called it the “extrovert ideal.” Those of us who are introverts know it well: the fact that more boisterous and talkative people than ourselves rule the professional and social landscapes around us, and look upon as perhaps being not well because we are…different.

And, no, before you misread that, I’m getting some sort of martyr complex or assuming a victim mentality. I’m simply saying that a disproportionate amount of extroverts seem to call the shots in prominent spheres of influence. Actually, I’m not even saying that…Cain is.

I thought of that when I read this hypothesis that those who shy away from having Facebook profiles may be antisocial or “suspicious,” because two recent attackers who made the news had avoided social media profiles. This is such a wildly nonsensical statement that I have difficulty justifying it with a response…and none of the responses that I can formulate off-the-cuff would be free of inappropriate language.

I’ll just say this: not wanting to have your entire life public, or even a large part of your life public, does not make you a sociopath. It likely just makes you an introvert. I’m an introvert. I have many friends who are. We’re not sociopaths. We just re-charge our batteries by having alone-time. That may be different from how you re-charge your batteries, but different doesn’t equal wrong.

Also, for those of us who are more tech-savvy, Facebook is the lowest-common-denominator, a poorly designed site that has devolved into a dysfunctional monster that vacuums up our data with complete disregard for any form of privacy. Many of us eschew Facebook profiles…either delete them or use them sparingly…for that reason. That doesn’t make us sociopaths, that means that we disagree with how this particular monster makes use of our information.

What concerns me more, however, is the cultural impulse that drives the desire to do what everyone else is doing. This apparently leads some employers to think that not having a Facebook profile means that you have something to hide, and to consider you a risk. Beyond the complete non-sequitur of thinking that one may not be a fit employee because they choose to act differently in a particular area…because they don’t conform to the extrovert ideal…there is something that concerns me more, here.

And that is, that Facebook now has us exactly where it wants us.

This particular social network has become so ubiquitous as to be the social norm for everyone. Because it monetizes your personal information as its business model, it wants everyone’s information, because that means more money for the company. So, it has succeeded in applying the social pressure on everyone to make them think that they have to have a profile on the site if they want to be considered normal.

To quote the title of a book I once saw, “normal is just a setting on your dryer.” I say, forget normal. Forget the monster that wants your information. I maintain a Facebook account because it remains the only way to reach certain friends, but I will delete my personal profile at my first opportunity. That doesn’t make me antisocial or a sociopath. It’s a choice of lifestyle. I would point out that many of us who dislike Facebook still make regular use of other social networks.

So, don’t let society pressure you into being normal. And, if they accuse of being a sociopath or some sort of nutcase, then feel bad for them. The extrovert majority, like the Fresh Prince’s parents, just don’t understand.