Communication requires only a rudimentary shared language: visual, physical, or sub-verbal language is all that we need to express basic wants. The use of a verbal language becomes a necessity when the content of a message shifts from physical things to the ideas and emotions caused by those physical objects. When communication shifts to conversation, the realm of potential topics expands vastly. The beauty of humanity, however, lies not in our ability to discuss the formal physical world, but in our capacity to generate complex abstractions based around reality. That leap, from looking at the night sky to Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, is where human potential lies.
The initial expression of that potential in a new form will meet resistance. Once upon a time in Europe, the dominant and most revered literary form was poetry. The novel, our century’s dominant form, came into being as a genre in the late 1700’s as a pedestrian form of entertainment. The lowest of literature, hardly deserving of the name, the novel was only suitable for serving girls and the lower classes, and the writers dabbling in it spent half the length of the earliest works apologizing for writing them and begging to be given a bit of credence from the reader (think the rustic play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream “I do hereby signify a wall” – hugely distracting). Novels have progressed beyond (thank god) Peter Quince and Bottom, deemed fully appropriate, and needing no justification. In certain circles, “admission” of literary aspiration earns you instant sexy points. Admission of interest in online self-publishing (the fancy-pants way of saying “blogging”) is, meanwhile, an eye-roll earner. Popular associations of blogging done by young women (yours truly) are overwhelmingly oriented in the direction of livejournal (we all had them at 13 and swiftly deleted them, never to be mentioned again, by 17) and the lovely individuals featured here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN1ru6_u8lY.
The blogger and the novelist, and any other formal pioneer, suffer from a lack of context for their work. Putting on a load of makeup and a costume and standing very still for an hour or two is commonplace enough that, love or hate them, the living statues in Harvard Square and Quincy Market exist as a known entity. But how did the first statue determine how to begin? How did he translate his modus operandi to people without making a flat declaration?
The leap from keeping a journal to publishing articles on the web necessitates the making of the same set of assumptions an actor requires of a spectator: as Stoppard says, “Actors are the opposite of people: they do not exist without an audience.” The keeping of a blog requires the assumption of a readership, one that this post may find eventually outside of a few intrepid friends who humor my delusions of grandeur drowning in a self-reflexive soup (thanks guys!). That assumption of readership, of generating a worthwhile publicly accessible and interesting product, is what makes me feel like there is some sort of context required for something of which I do not have a clear explication of intent developed.
As Americans we enjoy clearly delineated transitions and pomp and ceremony to mark beginnings: this week’s biggest news, the inauguration, was celebrated and watched by over 250 million Americans, featured 10 official inaugural balls (never mind the “unofficial” dance parties ripping throughout the capital), and 2 hours of essentially meaningless ceremony. The speeches were lovely, the poetry was strangely read, Aretha sang, but none of it was strictly necessary. The oath is tradition, yet it is meaningless. We, over the last 200 years, have developed our own rendition of a coronation to placate some cultural desire to indicate a smooth transition of governmental power. The whole process is unnecessary. America is unique in the tranquility of its leadership change and beginnings. Death of the predecessor, civil war, disintegration of political coalition, reformulation of government, vast civil unrest, none of it is necessary. People peaceably go to a secret ballot, cast a vote, they’re counted, and on a pre-determined date at noon, one man loses power as another gains it.
The ceremony captures our imaginations and appeals to that desire for a strong, clear statement of intent. We think we know the man we elected 10 weeks ago, but the ceremony reinforces that sense of security as the new leader begins leading with an address directed to us, not to his staff, foreign leaders, or the senate. This same emotional pull grounded in a desire for security is what makes Americans resistant to ambivalent beginnings in film and literature. Within the first ten minutes of a screenplay, the writer must establish the protagonist, antagonist, the primary conflict. Ten minutes is all you get to provide the viewer with a map of what is to come. Popular novels operate similarly. Without a firm knowledge of the opening stasis and the shove from the tree that shifts the protagonist from the opening, we lose interest or our interest is never peaked enough to warrant reading the entire piece.
For this piece, I cannot provide a vivid road map for the reader. I cannot tell where it will go or whether it will live up to expectations of thematic unity. The novel Dune opens with a "saying" indicating that beginnings are very fragile times and must be monitored carefully or else all is doomed to failure. That may be true. We shall see.
These are the things I worry about. It is no wonder I’m unemployed.
