1. AP article on black voter support for Obama. (h/t James Taranto)
2. A revisionist history of blackface. Seems that whites dressing in blackface and engaging in minstrelsy is similar to the modern “wigger” in that some whites now and then want(ed) to be black.
3. E-books and the self-publishing boom has led to a lot of pre-horse cart-putting. This guy has some advice:
At such conferences and conventions you always end up meeting a wide-eyed and delightfully eager gaggle of hopeful penmonkeys young and old who have not yet had the optimism beaten out of them and, more to the point, have not always had wisdom beaten into them.
(I am of course ever a fan of beating wisdom into writers. Often with a board. A heavy wooden board.)
Part of what always stuns me about these conferences is the focus — more from the standpoint of the question-askers rather than the answer-givers or the conference-holders — on the end game. The then above the now. The result rather than the process. The publishing above the story. More crassly, the questions end up being more about the commerce rather than the craft.
Reminds me of a private forum discussion in which an older blogger was telling a younger blogger that he has all of the technical skills to become a good writer, but what he lacks is life experience. I think anyone who writes on any level recognizes the quality of their output when they’re writing from a place of wisdom and experience rather than just trying to force the issue.
4. Does testosterone serve as a sort of truth serum? Strange methodology, but who knows. I’d expect that testosterone fosters a certain confidence that precludes the desire to be dishonest. Dishonesty can be seen as a sort of self-defense mechanism or a way to skirt around the rules laid down by society. If one feels insecure, they are more apt to be dishonest in order to procure resources. But men with higher testosterone levels might not be quite as insecure in themselves. They don’t skirt the rules in order to get ahead because they don’t feel like they’re already behind.
5. Ulysses on controlling the frame:
Don’t marry a bitch, but if she starts acting that way, say, “Bitch, be cool.” If that doesn’t work, then you need to exit the ride. Don’t wait for her to kick you off. She might wait till you’re about to go through the loop-to-loop and unfasten your seatbelt.
Like this:
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Thanks for the linkage.
Surviving slavery, segregation and discrimination has forged a special pride in African-Americans.
There are no African Americans alive today who have survived slavery. Indeed, there have not been any for a long time. What a shallow writer.
RE #3:
I think today’s smart young people generally don’t have much life experience about which to write. We went to school and to safe structured activities, with generally known family friends/etc. We talked on AIM all afternoon and night. We went to college and did a lot of drinking and drugs and if we were lucky or female, a lot of fucking, but that’s it — hanging around in various rooms getting wasted. All we know in life is intoxication and the internet and interpersonal drama. This is illustrated perfectly in HBO Girls when Hannah tries to write a new story to read at her writing circle and the only thing she can come up with is a story about her online boyfriend who died. She hasn’t lived. People who are having lots of life experience are generally too busy to write about it, and/or don’t have the technical ability to write their experience in a compelling way.
This also explains the rise of electronic dance music. It sounds awesome and is very emotional and expressive, but it doesn’t require any life experience to make it, only technical skill. Compare to stuff like Zeppelin, The Eagles, Skynard, Allman brothers, Grateful Dead, etc etc, all full of the tales of life well lived.
Finally, I don’t know who that writer is who said that, but my bet is he’s already quite established. So of course he’s all noble whining about how young writers should focus on the craft instead of the “end game”. Guess what shitbird? Today the end game is what matters. There are thousands of equivalently talented and basically interchangeable writers out there, and the difference between success and poverty hinges on who knows how to play the game. You can write the best novel, short story, or essay ever, but if you don’t present it in the right way to the right people (or it’s raacist) it’s going to go nowhere and you’re going to be on your ass, in ghetto hell. On the other side, you can write total and complete shit, but if it makes pussies wet and gets promoted (or say gets picked up by oprah), you’re a multi-millionaire overnight. The adivce giver wants us to believe that he’s in the position to give advice because he did the really hart job of creating truly brilliant content, but we know better.
Writing without content, or art without content, is the whole modern or post-modern or “whatever” thing. Since Hamlet maybe or Joyce. I did not finish reading Ulysses, but it was about what was going in this guy’s or that guy’s head. Beowulf was not about what Mr Bearwolf was thinking and feeling, he was too busy sailing around and kicking ass, ruling nations and killing monsters! Against such heroic measure, high marks in a graduate class in say writing are not a hill a beans; though perhaps they make for the grist of a story, say one about writing a story, in a class, wherein the lead character writes a story, in a class …
We see where that is going. Absolutely nowhere. That is style over substance, and but sensitive lexically prodigal quick-wits like Wallace end up with their head(s) in (a) noose(s). Or is that a moosehead on the wall?
I noticed the media member framing the Stacey Dash situation with a telling quote: ‘Said Barbara Walters on “The View”: “If she were white, this wouldn’t have happened.”‘
Even when blacks are being awful and expressing a 2 minute hate against one of their own, Barbara still has to bring it back that this only happened because she is black. I don’t know the rest of Walters’ quote, so I don’t see the context, but either she said it to frame it this way to remind everyone of the story fo racism in America today or the writer chose it to imply that.
SOBL: It’s not like she could say e.g. “If 98% of the blacks weren’t a pack of tribal primates incapable of seeing past their own skin color, this wouldn’t have happened.”
@ND – True, very true. Can’t tick off the members of the coalition of victims, especially not right before a voting day.
“… he has all of the technical skills to become a good writer, but what he lacks is life experience.”
This is why I’ve never started a blog. I’ve never felt that I have enough experience, knowledge, or wisdom to be an authority on anything. Why should anyone listen to me? Of course, this leads me to go out and try to learn more, which doesn’t help since the more you know the more you realize you don’t know anything.