Two Years' Eve

I will be giving a talk tonight (in Copenhagen, in Danish) under the title: What's the meaning of gonzo? When writing an abstract for this event a few months back I decided that I wanted to discuss the curious fact that Hunter S. Thompson's suicide is often discussed as a more or less appropriate or consistent rhetorical choice ('was or wasn't this self-inflicted gunshot truly gonzo?'). And I am almost certain that neither I nor the organizers realized at the time that the date for the talk is in fact the anniversary of Hunter Thompson's death on Feb. 20, 2005. But that's what it is, and I'm glad we happened to seize the day.

I had some faith in my own ability as an actress

Here's Nellie Bly again, because, well, today is Shrove Monday and my son assumed the characteristics of an apple tree before walking off to kindergarten. I wonder what the mission will demand of him and what stories he'll bring back from the field. And I wonder which will be the more interesting - less limiting - role: that of apple tree or that of princess (my daughter's choice for Friday). It is not, of course, a matter of what you are, but what you do. And it's not what you are that holds you back, it's what you think you're not. Try googling phrases like that and they erode themselves. And nothing is but what is not?

The expression could indicate confusion between the world we think of as real and the world of dreams, a neat summary of a confused mind. But how confused is Macbeth at this point?

I said I believed I could.

ON the 22d of September I was asked by the World if I could have myself committed to one of the asylums for the insane in New York, with a view to writing a plain and unvarnished narrative of the treatment of the patients therein and the methods of management, etc. Did I think I had the courage to go through such an ordeal as the mission would demand? Could I assume the characteristics of insanity to such a degree that I could pass the doctors, live for a week among the insane without the authorities there finding out that I was only a "chiel amang 'em takin' notes?" I said I believed I could. I had some faith in my own ability as an actress and thought I could assume insanity long enough to accomplish any mission intrusted to me. Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell's Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.

Read Nellie Bly's full story of her Ten Days in a Mad-House here (and save the original price of twenty-five cents for the publication which also includes "Trying to be a Servant: My strange experience at two employment agencies" and "Nellie Bly as a White Slave: Her experience in the role of a New York shop-girl making paper boxes").

Accidental Ethnography

[Arguments against introspective writing, continued]

Tony Dokoupil in the New Partisan is commenting on a negative review of Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man. The review is written by memoirist Ann Marlowe who asks for more introspection in Norah Vincent's pages and encourages Vincent to write more about her own world than about that of the men she's investigating.

This makes Dokoupil rail against "Me Books" in general and the memoir - "arguably the most unambitious genre" - in particular:

Me Books are distinguished by the fact that the first-person voice is the only voice in the text, and “I-I-I” is tacitly believed to be the only seat of authority from which to report the world. [...] They want to pretend that what they publish is more than eloquent journal writing; that it’s cultural commentary; that their accidental adventures in addiction, divorce, death, and disease can be activated into episodes of accidental ethnography. Because, after all, we’re all cultural observers, we all have a story to tell, and all our personal opinions are valid by virtue of being lived. This, plainly enough, is buncombe.

Harsh words about the first person perspective (and not uncommon) - but what is it, then, that qualifies some first person accounts to count as valuable pieces of cultural commentary? How to avoid this 'ethnographic fallacy'?

Tony Dokoupil's own praise of Norah Vincent provides some answers, as Vincent is recognized for her way of making room for other voices in her text (which I too really appreciate about it) and for basing her story on actual field investigations ---in stead of, say, opening her heart at a given point in history, personal column (or personal blog) style, and writing a memoir based exclusively on her own particular personal history. But it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between genres like this and harder to define what's appropriate, valid and valuable in terms of giving a personal account of events.

I insist, of course, that the quality of the personal accounts remains more than a question of individual taste among readers, so---- I'll leave the blog for now and go work on my proposal to the research council. More about the latter matter later.

Show some attitude too

I've been looking around for more detailed arguments concerning the writers' rule of thumb to show and not tell, and I came across Darren Barefoot who is arguing against introspective writing in a blogpost which makes for a very sobering reading experience for a first person proponent like myself. For I've been encouraging introspection, haven't I, but that, says Barefoot,

advocates a “tell, don’t show” model of writing.

"Show, don’t tell” is, in my estimation, the number one rule of writing. As Mark Twain put it, “don’t say the old lady screamed…bring her on and let her scream.”

There's nothing new here (even if that quote is still fun, very evocative in sort of an Alfred Hitchcock manner), but then Barefoot makes a point of turning the showing into an actual show, a performance, which makes a writer's introspection valuable after all:

In this context, don’t say “I went out walking and felt sad”, say “I went out walking and saw a crazy lady” and let your description of her demonstrate your sadness. There are few ways of writing the former, but infinite ways of writing the latter.

Let your description of the old lady demonstrate your sadness, he says, and that, I think, is what I'm after in Ditlev Jensen who somehow seems eager not to demonstrate an attitude except, perhaps, from that of a radically open mind.