Wired Minds

Lisa Schmeiser

Living dolls

One summer in middle school, I chanced upon a Reader's Digest condensed books volume that contained a treatment of Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives. All you highbrow readers may not know this, but the RD condensed-books treatment not only slices-and-dices chunks of text, it adds in art, just in case you like your chapter books with pictures.

For the Stepford Wives, someone had done a little photography and created before-and-after human-to-mannequin heads for all the women who were killed and replaced with robots. It was nicely creepy, and obviously made an impression on me, because in the past week, I've seen two real-life photography efforts that seem to mirror the desire to replace warm humanity with commoditized perfection.

The first was covered last week in Salon's chick blog with the post "Airbrushing the Baby." I swung by Pageant Photo Retouching to see exactly what all the fuss was about, and got my answer on this page. I prefer the natural look but clearly, there is a market for people who want photos of their children to resemble those ads for dolls that run in the USA Weekend supplement.

Then this morning, I was looking at Valerie Belin's untitled 2003 series, in which she photographed living models to resemble mannequins. Again -- a little frisson of unease when I checked out the pictures. I suspect that Belin's making a statement about the artificiality of "beauty" and how commoditized our definitions are, how ultimately dehumanizing.

But what ultimately strikes me about both is how very female the photo subjects in both sets of prints are. We don't see little boys being retouched to look less human; we don't see male mannequins. In the case of the latter, I would hazard a guess that it's because most people don't regard men as sales accessories to the same degree that women are. It seems that ultimately, to be female in the Western world is to learn how to deal with the fact that your natural appearance is not publicly/industrially permissible in a way that men's natural appearances are. It will be up to you to decide how to deal with that.

One summer in middle school, I chanced upon a Reader's Digest condensed books volume that contained a treatment of Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives. All you highbrow readers may not know this, but the RD condensed-books treatment not only slices-and-dices chunks of text, it adds in art, just in case you like your chapter books with pictures.

For the Stepford Wives, someone had done a little photography and created before-and-after human-to-mannequin heads for all the women who were killed and replaced with robots. It was nicely creepy, and obviously made an impression on me, because in the past week, I've seen two real-life photography efforts that seem to mirror the desire to replace warm humanity with commoditized perfection.

The first was covered last week in Salon's chick blog with the post "Airbrushing the Baby." I swung by Pageant Photo Retouching to see exactly what all the fuss was about, and got my answer on this page. I prefer the natural look but clearly, there is a market for people who want photos of their children to resemble those ads for dolls that run in the USA Weekend supplement.

Then this morning, I was looking at Valerie Belin's untitled 2003 series, in which she photographed living models to resemble mannequins. Again -- a little frisson of unease when I checked out the pictures. I suspect that Belin's making a statement about the artificiality of "beauty" and how commoditized our definitions are, how ultimately dehumanizing.

But what ultimately strikes me about both is how very female the photo subjects in both sets of prints are. We don't see little boys being retouched to look less human; we don't see male mannequins. In the case of the latter, I would hazard a guess that it's because most people don't regard men as sales accessories to the same degree that women are. It seems that ultimately, to be female in the Western world is to learn how to deal with the fact that your natural appearance is not publicly/industrially permissible in a way that men's natural appearances are. It will be up to you to decide how to deal with that.

Gary Wolf

Terry Eagleton Reviews Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion

Terry Eagleton attacks Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion in the latest issue of the London Review of Books. Eagleton points out, as have many others, that Dawkins' contempt for religion blinds him to the meaning of the faith he attacks. Outlining what he calls "mainstream theology," Eagleton tells the story of a despised messiah from the margins of society who brings hope to the poor, is laid back about sex and possessions, and is murdered by the lackeys and running dogs of the empire. Eagleton tells the story of a communist Jesus, and, while not committing himself to whether he believes this story is true, marvels that a professed anti-dogmatist like Dawkins would fail to find the slightest interest in the complexities of "the richest, most enduring form of popular culture in history."

Within this critique, some of which is predictable, is a funny attack on "a very English brand of common sense that believes mostly in what it can touch, weigh, and taste." For Eagleton, such common sense is pure philistinism. His complaints put him in a tradition of irritated intellectuals – going back through Nietszche to Rousseau – who find the empiricism of English scientists and factory owners tiresome beyond words. They only believe in what they can see! What about theories, sentiments, ideals, narratives, the sweep of history, the deeper and higher truths of life? But of course the English empiricists do have theories, and, as scientists, they spend most of their time among abstractions that can neither be seen nor felt. The difference between these stodgy liberal empiricists and the theoreticians who attempt to grasp the meaning of life and existence as a whole lies in their method. The empiricists put their faith in experiment, repeatability, prediction. What cannot be tested is not real.

But this empirical notion of reality is influential and widespread, perhaps even as influential and as widespread as the mainstream Christian theology Eagleton describes. In fact, popular religiosity innocently blends the empirical with the mythic, accepting healing miracles, the power of prayer, foretelling dreams. From Eagleton's description, one would think this empirical side of Christianity is not true religion at all, and that Dawkins insults religion by assuming it is. But the actual practice, prayers, and sermons found in Christian churches offer many hints of a lingering belief that God can be influenced to get us the good things we want.

via http://www.aether.com    

Lisa Schmeiser

The public gaze on the private library

I find myself thoroughly intrigued by other people's books. I want to borrow them and read them. Sometimes I go so far as to mimic other people's collections, adding my own copies of their titles to my shelves at home.

[...]

What interests me about other people's books is the nature of their collection. A personal library is an X-ray of the owner's soul. It offers keys to a particular temperament, an intellectual disposition, a way of being in the world. Even how the books are arranged on the shelves deserves notice, even reflection.

-- "Other People's Books," The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sep 22, 06

Among my more ungracious behaviors is my near-involuntary inability to walk into someone else's house without immediately scoping out their reading material. My primary reason is to see if they have something I've wanted to read, because then I can ask, "Hey, how was that?" However, I will cop to thinking that you can also get a window into who people are by the books they keep.

(I will admit: I always love finding the incongruous trashy novel on someone's otherwise rigorously smart shelves, or the oddball unabridged Greek philosophy tome on a bookshelf packed with Reader's Digest condensed volumes. There's something admirable about people who have no problem living with the mute testimony of their personality's paradoxes.)

That said, it would never occur to me to try and construct my social persona via my book purchases. It seems fundamentally dishonest, like giving lip service to a belief you don't hold. And because my book collection is an accretive reflection of who I was, am and will be ... I am too close to it to figure out what people see when they case my shelves. Do you think about what clues your book collection sends to others? Do you practice library-o-mancy in other people's houses?

via http://schmeiser.typepad.com/

I find myself thoroughly intrigued by other people's books. I want to borrow them and read them. Sometimes I go so far as to mimic other people's collections, adding my own copies of their titles to my shelves at home.

[...]

What interests me about other people's books is the nature of their collection. A personal library is an X-ray of the owner's soul. It offers keys to a particular temperament, an intellectual disposition, a way of being in the world. Even how the books are arranged on the shelves deserves notice, even reflection.

-- "Other People's Books," The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sep 22, 06

Among my more ungracious behaviors is my near-involuntary inability to walk into someone else's house without immediately scoping out their reading material. My primary reason is to see if they have something I've wanted to read, because then I can ask, "Hey, how was that?" However, I will cop to thinking that you can also get a window into who people are by the books they keep.

(I will admit: I always love finding the incongruous trashy novel on someone's otherwise rigorously smart shelves, or the oddball unabridged Greek philosophy tome on a bookshelf packed with Reader's Digest condensed volumes. There's something admirable about people who have no problem living with the mute testimony of their personality's paradoxes.)

That said, it would never occur to me to try and construct my social persona via my book purchases. It seems fundamentally dishonest, like giving lip service to a belief you don't hold. And because my book collection is an accretive reflection of who I was, am and will be ... I am too close to it to figure out what people see when they case my shelves. Do you think about what clues your book collection sends to others? Do you practice library-o-mancy in other people's houses?

via http://schmeiser.typepad.com/

Lisa Schmeiser

What I read last week: the "They're graphic novels" edition

Let's get one thing straight: I think there needs to be more mainstream coverage and criticism for comics. Any form of media needs coverage and criticism; how else are we to become literate in its narrative conventions and understand how they work? And any form of cultural transmission needs coverage and criticism.

Yes -- any. Although I don't agree with many of the premises in Chuck Klosterman's "The Lester Bangs of Video Games" [Esquire, Jul 06], I do find this statement relevant: "If nobody ever thinks about these games in a manner that's human and metaphorical and contextual, they'll all become strictly commodities." Just substitute the word "comics." See?

via http://schmeiser.typepad.com/

Let's get one thing straight: I think there needs to be more mainstream coverage and criticism for comics. Any form of media needs coverage and criticism; how else are we to become literate in its narrative conventions and understand how they work? And any form of cultural transmission needs coverage and criticism.

Yes -- any. Although I don't agree with many of the premises in Chuck Klosterman's "The Lester Bangs of Video Games" [Esquire, Jul 06], I do find this statement relevant: "If nobody ever thinks about these games in a manner that's human and metaphorical and contextual, they'll all become strictly commodities." Just substitute the word "comics." See?

via http://schmeiser.typepad.com/

David Weir

How do we become better writers?    

It's been just over a year since I taught my last course on reporting and writing at Stanford, and I miss teaching. Throughout the 20 or so years I taught journalism at U-C, Berkeley, SFSU, down on The Farm, by far the most FAQ by students was the one posted in the title field above.

Over the coming weeks, I'll post a series of suggestions. Tonight, as a followup to yesterday's piece about technology's effect on writing, and other work, I have one simple piece of advice that can be used by anyone.

Email.

An email exchange with the right recipient is perfect for improving your writing voice. The reasons lie at the intersection between the nature of email experience and the nature of the writing process.

When I first got into email, I called it "talk-writing" or "write-talking." It was a new communication form, combining elements of the arts of conversation and letter-writing. Living somewhere around the midpoint of an imaginary spectrum connecting those two ancient forms, email opened up an ancient struggle for hegemony.

Since Gutenberg, the printed word has held the balance of power over the more ancient form of oral tradition.

Suddenly, email rerighted the balance. It's less formal, more spontaneous, and much more interactive than publishing or letter writing. It's less intimate than conversation face to face.

(IM and chat represent email on steroids. I'll get to them another time.)

Last week, J used this method to produce the first draft of a piece we are coauthoring about the ongoing FEMA scandals in post-Katrina Mississippi. Here is how she described our process:

"So... I'll try to write what I think, then if you want you can edit it etc. I'm going to just write it like an email to you. This is complete stream of consciousness, so have fun with it..."

Most people feel more comfortable just letting it go in email, whereas they might freeze up when they try to write in a more formal way. For me, as an editor, it is easier to pull writing out of a person via email than to deal with an awkwardly structured draft.

My goal is to help the writer develop some narrative form of story telling, probably based on visual cues and other descriptive triggers. By using email, she is more relaxed, and sends me information in a form that includes explaining to me what she thinks it means. She's not worrying about an audience larger than one. So she lets it fly.

That what writers learn to do -- how to become less inhibited with language and let it fly.

This is only an initial attempt to answer the question in my title. I promise to add more soon.

via http://hotweir.blogspot.com/