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Apr 24 2012
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Community

Being Alone Together and Loving it?

“Live together, die alone.” The famous quote from our hero, Jack, in Lost. I thought the quote came from someone famous but I can only find Jack. Well, he is famous (if fictional). So are our Facebooked and Twittered lives, you might say. You might also say that Lost is based on a series of cliches, but one thing that really gives it cachet and substance as a truth-telling vehicle is on the allegorical level. Things that happen on the island are isolated and intensified in a way that reveals us to ourselves in microcosm. Things are smaller and therefore more intensified on the island. We can see our larger, more complicated culture in the tensions, alliances and values of those cut adrift, those who seek to thrive versus merely survive.

Exploring the difference between being alone versus lonely–a major psychic difference–is currently a sexy subject. Perhaps some of the recent buzz has to do with sociologist Eric Klinenberg’s release, “Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.” Here he is in a recent interview on the subject.

The social media made big promises about how big our and connected our social lives would be. So is the growing loneliness trend ironic? Perhaps, but is it really so surprising? Whatever it is, people seem to enjoy being connected but also keeping people at arm’s length, and the current generation barely knows how to maintain a face-to-face conversation.

How true is all this for the writer? It’s well documented, and patently obvious, that a writer works in isolation. Much of this is a “call” to some respect, a desire to be alone in order to suss out those designs taking shape in our noggins. Some of it is just part of the grind. The writer-as-loner image certainly plays to stereotypes, but what we now have with the unbelievable power of technology devices like smart phones and all the ensuing social media apps, is a phenomenon of being alone that Americans in particular now experience at rates never seen before. Eight times more Americans are single after 25, for instance, than compared to 1950, according to “The Disconnect: Why Are So Many Americans Living Alone,” and with far less social stigma. In many respects, social technology allows us to live the American Dream of complete independence, and self-invention, but are we lonely because we want to be? Or is it a result of our unexamined lives? The latest Atlantic feature article explores just that.

Writers aren’t necessarily lonely because they’re tapped into meaning-making activities. That’s what everyone needs, it would seem. Not merely being accessed, or having the means to rant about a given pet project on one’s status update, but being plugged into communities with others who value you and what you do. Not fans so much, but your family and friends. A person, after all, is not an island.

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Apr 20 2012
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Writing Advice

Word Count: Helpful Tool or Insidious Device to Make Writers Feel Like They’re Getting Somewhere When Really They’re Not?

When it comes to a first draft, for me there’s nothing like a good Word Count taskmaster sitting at the bottom of my Word document, chiding me to push on. Word counting, however, has become ubiquitous and I’m starting to wonder if it’s more a sign of our uber-chatty, product-and-information-based culture, than it is a tool that actually helps push forward good writing.

You hear lots of writers these days discussing their word counts. “When I’m going strong,” one says, “I’m a good 1,000 WPM.” As with most competitive sports, this creates games of one-upmanship. “1,000? Yeah, that’s pretty good. I mean, I don’t know exactly what you mean by ‘going strong,’ but I generally aim for 2,000. When I’m hopped up on some coffee and other legal stimulants, the sky’s the limit.”

Writers who seriously discuss their word counts sometimes remind me of those eighth grade reading classes that measured how many words one read per minute. Remember those things? You centered your book on the table just so, and a bar of light ran down the page. By then, I saw myself as a pretty serious reader, but all these other kids were flipping pages like Howard Stephen Berg. Remember Howard Stephen Berg? In my early twenties I was more serious than ever about my reading speed. I was halfway through my first graduate school experience, and was flush with enthusiasm for understanding and interpreting religion and all its ensuing humanities-related fields: philosophy, theology, history, psychology, philology. On several scholarships, my primary job was to read, study, learn. It was a good life (other than having no spending money and a scant dating life as a possible future minister), which would be made all the better if I could simply cover more ground in less time. Thus, I was hooked by the persuasive Kevin Trudeau and his partner, Howard Stephen Berg, world’s fastest speedreader. They guaranteed that the Mega Speed Reading course would at least quadruple my reading speed—or my money back. Now that was a guarantee I couldn’t afford to pass on. I followed the techniques, and with some solid concentration, I’d say at best I may have doubled my reading speed. This is what I told the operator when I asked for my money back. “I was guaranteed a quadrupled reading rate. It was only doubled.” In graduate school covering a lot of ground is an inherent advantage, no doubt. Reading as a writer? Absorbing style and techniques, not to mention simply enjoying the ride? Is the winner she who reads fastest?

I recently had dinner with Susan Gregg Gilmore who says she pays no attention whatsoever to word counts. She may be an exception to today’s rule. There are days over the past couple of years where I’ve really enjoyed having some kind of yardstick for how “productive” I was as I generated yet another series of first draft material. I’ve set goals like a 2,000 word per day average for five days a week over 13 weeks will produce a first draft. My PR stood at a couple of 4,000 word days until I broke through with back-to-back 5,400 and 5,100 word days. What I like about the concept is that if you hold yourself to a high number, you can function as your own kind of project manager, pushing through creative obstacles and making decisions that you might have otherwise gotten hung up on. That certainly must “count” for something. It’s also a reasonable monitoring device that helps guide one toward an overall goal. At this stage in my novel writing, I am wary of crossing the 100,000 word divide. Thus, when I’m pushing that margin (as I have for Simon Krimple’s Wager), I have a kind of guide to assist in the balance of scene, character, subject.

What I don’t like? After that first draft I find myself too conscious of the word count. How many words have I cut today? Is that an inverse progress? Why does it matter? I’m also adding material that needs development. Probably the single-most obvious issue is that quantity always loses to quality, and there’s no immediate measurement for that.

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Apr 17 2012
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Status of the Novel

In Search of the Lost Wackys

It all happened innocently enough. The year, 2008. The day, Saturday. The family had nothing to do. With time on our hands, and nothing to eat in our fridge, we decided to make a mid-morning foray to Aretha Frankensteins, known for their killer breakfast burritos and sloth-paced service. It was busy and already hot outside and flies were making camp at the tables so, as fate would have it, we ended up inside next to the Pac-Man arcade machine.

Then I saw it, the framed images that would soon change the direction of my life’s creative journey: a collage of old-school Wacky Packages. How could I have forgotten? The cards were more than a fad to me between the ages of 8 and 10. They were sources of endless fascination and a weird, pre-adolescent rebellion. I never had enough money to collect all the cards I wanted. Opening each pack, laden with sugar-powdered gum, was pure excitement and anticipation. I have no idea what became of my collection of nearly 200.

“How much?” I asked the Frankenstein’s manager. They were not for sale.

But wait! I could find them online.

Sure enough, not only could I find the old ones I’d so confabulated, but there was a whole history of Wackys, and a series of new releases. The following months held a quiet joy to me as I opened box upon box of new and old Wackys–all under the guise that this was really in support of Eliah’s (he was six) new fascination. A kind of father-son bonding thing.

All those 25+ years later something had happened. The fascination remained obscured by my adult-ness. Now, they felt much more like a collector’s item and less like…I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly. I tried everything. Well, not everything. I didn’t go to the length of Greg Grant (featured in this YouTube video), but I did what I reasonably could. “We” got Old School Series and New School Series (which definitely aren’t the same as the artwork by Norm Saunders!); we collected entire sets and arranged them in order; completed the puzzles on the back sides of the cards; even made our own framed collage. Nothing helped. My childhood exhilaration was lost to me. Forever.

And yet…

A couple of years later, a concept emerged for a novel. I was conceiving an American zeitgeist novel. Something that takes place in a very limited amount of self-important time, in which the narrator is surrounded by the pop cultural images that constitute his identity and basically his entire “reality.” He doesn’t resist. In fact, he has become so much a part of his marketing and capitalistic culture, he revels in his senses’ bombardment. His years-long marital struggle and fruitless attempts to procreate are the center of his soul’s struggle and create the narrative tension as he skitters across town. The original images centered on Wacky Packages. Some of the themes focus on the hollow struggle to bring back the past. The novel became The Director of Happiness.

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Apr 16 2012
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Community

High-Speed Rail or Where We Would be Today if They’d Only Seen My Ten-Year-Old Drafts

Did you know that Japan has had a bullet train since 1961? I kid you not. Eight years before America sent a man to the moon. Two years before the British Invasion. In Europe, high-speed rail started during the International Transport Fair in Munich in June 1965, when DB Class 103 hauled a total of 347 demonstration trains at 200 km/h (124 mph) between Munich and Augsburg.

Exactly three years ago to the day (April 16, 2009), President Obama proposed a plan to fight the economic crisis with a focus on infrastructure. He proposed high-speed rail. It would create jobs, fight gridlock, save lives on the highway, oh, and cut down on our oil dependency. So, what’s happened since then? Good question.

What does high-speed rail have to do with Hanging Chad subject matter? Well, doesn’t high-speed rail relate to creativity and innovation? I was ten and I lived in California when I conceived the idea: a capsule that travels at high speeds and takes you anywhere. Sure, I had a lot of space-age ideas, too, but this was grounded in real possibility. Or so it seemed. (And apparently it wasn’t really as innovative as I thought way back in 1982.) Because here we stand–the U.S. of A. in 2012 (some 30 years later), without a single high-speed rail line.

What are we missing? Where does one begin? Maximum commercial speed is about 300 km/h (186 mph) for the majority of national high speed railways (Japan, China, Taiwan, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, UK). The Shanghai Maglev Train reaches 431 km/h (268 mph). What would it be like to travel from Chattanooga to Atlanta in thirty minutes, all while sipping a cup of joe and composing a blog post? Pick your cities. Cut your travel time by 25-75%. Relax and thank your lucky stars that you’re alive and traveling in the 21st century.

Currently, California is attempting to resurrect this transformative idea but for some reason it continues to meet with a surprising amount of resistance and political footballing. You can believe the hype that the project is a bag of “lemons,” and that the costs have been wildly overestimated. However, it seems, as so many other issues related to the American economy, that we’re stuck by the powerful vested interest of the oil companies who have created a “think tank” to spread the word that high-speed rail would lead to “bigger government” and mismanagement and who knows what other obfuscation. I’m sorry, but Hanging Chad has had enough. Let’s get some high-speed rail in the land of freedom and innovation before I die a bitter and resigned old man!

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Mar 30 2012
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C&R Press, Community

Start with Why: A Great Idea Applied to C&R Press

Ryan Van Cleave and I founded C&R Press in late 2006, which brings up to a little over five full years of operation. We had more good ideas than we could possibly generate–and far more energy and expertise than funds–and while we’ve built a solid base of support and backlist of books and authors we’re proud of, we still haven’t approximated the tipping point we still strive for.

Fundraising has been our biggest challenge. As the press has grown, it’s been all we can do to manage the production of our titles and keep things moving for our authors. We’ve literally not once taken advantage of our 501(c)3 nonprofit status in order to write a grant. Neither have we put together a fundraiser, or even initiated a pledge drive. Somehow, we’ve survived from the modest sales of many of our authors, and a few generous donations. A little over a month ago, however, at the AWP National Writers’ Conference in Chicago, we began to reaffirm our belief and commitment that our press (that began “ex nihilo”) can still fulfill the mission and vision that we originally conceived several years ago.

There is far too much going on behind the scenes for C&R right now for any single post, but one thing that sent us spinning into overdrive when we came back from our exhilarating conference was the need to more clearly define who we already are. We met with Christa Payne, the Director of Development and External Relations for the Public Education Foundation, an expert in fundraising. Among other things, we asked:

Why can’t we, as a nonprofit literary press, have a fundraiser? And what’s keeping us from writing and landing local, regional and national grants?

So many grants have such specific guidelines that it’s easy to lose the forest for the trees. For instance, while community development and enhancing the arts is a great intersection between what a grant seeks to fund and what we CAN do, above and beyond we need operational funds to sign and promote the many wonderful authors that come our way, to be solvent. We believe in literature as a transformative and crucial cultural dimension of human experience in and of itself, not necessarily tied to other nonprofit campaigns. How do we communicate that, and how do we find others to join our cause?

The long and short of it is this: Our conversation with Christa and others over the past several weeks led us to confirming a stronger case of not only who we are, or what we do, but most importantly, why we are. When I saw this Ted Talk, it hit me that everything we already are is not being stated clearly enough. Ryan and I went to work. The results can be found on our website. We’re still “in process” on some our aesthetics and design, but the statements are there now. Why (we are), How (we do it), and What (we do).

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Mar 29 2012
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Community

The Rich Behave Differently?

When I was somewhere in that blurry, ego-development state between 7 and 9, I remember thinking that if I was king of the world things would be different (sort of like Max in “Where the Wild Things Are”). I just knew. I would be good. I would be tolerant. If they’d only just give me the chance, if I owned the world, it would be a better place. About 15 years later, I found myself at a Libertarian “think tank,” called the Acton Institute where they began with the fundamental axiom from Lord Acton himself, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” While I didn’t subscribe to where their philosophies generally led from there, I have to admit that it’s a pretty safe statement.

So should it really be any surprise that a recent University of California study has found that people from privileged, wealthy backgrounds are more likely to be dishonest and unethical than their poorer counterparts? I suppose if there is a surprise here, the irony is that the wealthy should have less reason to lie, steal, and cheat. Honestly, though, is it really news that people of different social classes behave differently? I guess the wealthy are a prime target these days.

The problem I have with such studies (whatever their specific intent), is that even with all the appropriate qualifications about how this doesn’t apply to all wealthy people, and how it also doesn’t apply across the board in reverse (the poorer you are, the more “moral” you are likely to be), it seems more potentially damaging than helpful. Paul Piff, the study’s lead researcher, insists that he’s not out to wage any kind of class warfare, rather he hopes his research will help bridge policy gaps. One solution? Make ethics classes mandatory for all business and economics students, he tells NBC News. He also notes that even just watching a film on childhood poverty encourages people of all classes to behave more ethically toward others.

Theoretically, the wealthy behave with less regard for others because they are less dependent on others for social bonds. I think the wealthy are just like the poor, with one major difference: they have the means to absorb their mistakes. Still, however we feel about this study, we all would like to have a little more stockpiled wealth, would we not? Money means freedom, independence–at least to a certain extent before it becomes burdensome. So, before you judge, do recall the fallacy of the developing ego (above). Regardless of how noble your intent, power and status do funny things to a person.

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Mar 28 2012
2 Comments
The New Zoo Music Review

Renaming Jazz to BAM = Bad Idea

I’m no jazz aficionado, just a fan, a lifelong fan. I know a fair share of jazz’s history. While I’ve taken some jazz guitar lessons, learned some scales, and know first hand the complexity of this rich and varied music, I claim no special expertise. So, why is it so troubling to learn about the movement with the intent to rename Jazz to Black American Music? Apparently, Nicholas Payton believes jazz died in 1959, that it was a limited concept anyway.

Whatever we want to say about Jazz’s history, where the term came from, or what it may have come to mean, even the way jazz (like so many things American) is embedded with racial strife, it’s a bad idea to try and change the name of an entire history. That’s what it is. Jazz is a history of music, not just some convenient marketing label or genre tag. Attempting to rename it because not enough people understand what it is, or because young kids don’t know who Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington is, is a band-aid to a larger problem related to education and how music in general is marketed and popularized. I’m not saying I know all the solutions, but such a re-branding effort is mistaken.

Here’s a summary the basic arguments for why Jazz should be renamed BAM: (1) It’s an effort toward correcting the historical record; (2) It will educate people about where the music really comes from; (3) It is actually more inclusive than exclusive (there is no intent, anyway, to be exclusive); and (4) To renew the interest in Jazz, especially for the audience “that isn’t there.”

Etymologically, jazz is a fascinating word. The slang word “jasm” appears as early as 1842 (some say 1860), and means “spirit, energy, spunk.” It seems to have become a part of American parlance in the early part of the 20th century. For instance, one of its earliest recorded uses sprung up from the West Coast in 1912, and didn’t even have a musical connotation. It was used by a minor league pitcher, Ben Henderson, who referred to his new curve ball as the Jazz Ball “because it wobbles and you simply can’t do anything with it.” The word did refer to music in Chicago as early as 1915. As a noun in the 1920s it seems to have generally meant “to make more decorative.” According to A Historical Dictionary of American Slang, as an adjective, in the 1910s “to excite or enthuse.” As an adjective, “jazzed” seems to have connoted being drunk (which, again, seems related to “spirits”). There are several strains of where the term actually comes from, and no doubt there are plenty of sexual slang connotations related to “jizz,” “spunk,” “jism” and so on, but that’s pretty weak ground for changing the entire name of over a centuries-worth of a serious musical art form.

Hanging Chad can’t possibly take on this complex topic systematically, but one problem is radio play itself. It hasn’t just ruined a generation of rock, it’s pretty much calcified every other musical form that seeks to express itself in any way other than what is deemed as mass-market potential. At least there are people like Esperanza Spalding trying to do something about it. Orrin Evans seems to be a leading spokesperson for the BAM movement, and while he seems convinced of BAM’s essential efficacy and doesn’t have an intent to exclude, it seems this effort does just that (he was frustrated by the fact-shaping of Annette John-Hall’s interpretation of his reasoning in a recent article from the Philly Inquirer). While it may be frustrating that most audiences these days are “white guys,” it seems to me that the irony of these rebranding efforts only does exactly what it suggests we shouldn’t do: re-create racial antipathy. For instance, do I not have a right to voice these very opinions because I’m a “white guy”? And aren’t there quite a number of white pioneers in the music form throughout the 20th century? I wonder what the 91-year-old Dave Brubeck has to say on the subject, or late-greats like Benny Goodman, Chet Baker, Bill Evans and others?

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Mar 23 2012
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Hanging Chad: Life in the South, Status of the Novel

Delayed Happiness

Hanging Chad had a radio interview on Chattanooga’s local NPR station (88.1) yesterday. Mike Miller and I sat down for over 30 minutes, and he’s edited two segments to air on Around and About. This is a clip of the first one, which is about taking some leaps of faith in my personal and professional life. Miller’s editing focuses a lot of my relationship with Shelley, and a little on the development of my debut novel. It’s all good though. The book is dedicated to my “Director of Happiness,” and it’s not coming out in published form for quite some time yet. Plenty of time to discuss it at greater length down the road.

Hanging Chad posts have slowed a bit this week while I’ve been trying on my new jet pack. Also, I’m in the grand finale stages of completing this final draft of The Director of Happiness. Plenty of other things going on, which I’m sure my readers know all about in their own lives. I won’t bore you with the details. Thanks for checking in, and stay tuned for new and exciting posts featuring high speed rail, the BAM movement in jazz, how studies show the rich behave differently (and what you can do about it), starting with the “why,” and much much more.

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Mar 20 2012
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The New Zoo Music Review

I Used To Be A Sparrow’s Debut

Paperwings Records asked me to consider doing a review on the recently released debut album of italian-swedish band “I Used To Be A Sparrow.” I listened to them and was impressed enough to agree to help spread the word in the form of this small post. The duo is getting some really nice feedback about their debut single “Life is good,” whose video premiered ealier this month on MTV New Generation.
I Used To Be A Sparrow is a unique blend between the powerful impact of an arena rock act and the urgency and dirt of a garage band, with a fondness for heartfelt songs. Dick Pettersson and Andrea Caccese definitely know how to stay busy. The former has been rocking the swedish indie music scene with acclaimed alt-rock group “In These Woods,” and the latter is an italian-born songwriter who has been gaining recognition all over Europe as “Songs For The Sleepwalkers.”
The pair teamed up in December 2011 to create something new and exciting. The ideas and songs that were brought up to the table eventually turned into a full length album. “Luke” is a collection of 11 songs heading in different directions while sharing a common watermark thanks to the band’s straight forward  approach.
You can download the full album promo HERE or stream on SPOTIFY.
To see their video click here
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Mar 19 2012
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Community, Writing Advice

Listen! Some Techniques to Improve Your Mind…and Your Relationships

Does pop music “ruin” your brain? That seems a little extreme, but the days that I listen to music (pop or otherwise) for long stretches, whether it’s driving or sitting in my office and writing with something instrumental playing in the background, after a while the music becomes stale. That’s about the best I can describe it. I know it’s anecdotal, but I think the brain literally fatigues.

As I understand, one of the reasons we’re not supposed to even talk on the phone and drive is that the same part of the brain that processes language is the same part that is making the moment-by-moment decisions as the road comes at you. You can’t give the same full attention to both things at the same time. It’s the same basic reason for why you’re not really “multitasking” when you’re checking out your Facebook page, texting your friend, and watching the latest episode of “Modern Family.” Your brain just spreads its attention thin.

I guess, when it comes down to it, listening takes concentration. Just ask your therapist. Of course, there are all different kinds of listening, and what I’ve identified here is that even a relatively passive form of listening (background music) takes some form of concentration. In fact, levels of listening are so multi-dimensional (and so well-researched), there are actually brain wave therapy approaches, which do everything from heal the mind, to help it learn better. Basically, they seem to be a contemporary, science-based version of meditation.

Some recent research shows that when we dream we’re improving our capacity to listen and to make memories. Apparently, part of what’s going on when we dream and enter into that R.E.M. phase of sleep, is that we’re forgetting as much as remembering. The mind is putting things in order. Apparently, according to “Dr. Universe,” the way some of this works is that the “currency” of energy in your cells, including your neurons, is molecules called ATP, or adenosine triphosphate. As the brain cells use that energy, the ATP breaks down, leaving all this adenosine floating around in your brain, which theoretically causes sleepiness.

That’s a bit technical for the Hanging Chad. He’s having a hard enough time concentrating just to write this post. One sure-fire technique for making your significant other happy, though, is to put the Rogerian Method into your communication arsenal. Basically, “mirror” back whatever it is they just said. This lowers the volume and cuts down on the need for your “other” to feel the need to repeat. Whether or not it’s something you want to hear? Well, the Hanging Chad can’t solve all your problems!

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