Written like portions of a how-to manual, the creatively wrought piece tells a story of longing. It's about a woman with a lover she can't bring to social functions and whose celebrations she can't share.
The other day I was on the phone with an acquaintance of mine, and she was bemoaning the fact that I didn't celebrate the major holidays. That makes it hard to date, she noted. I had to agree. Times past, I've known many a nice woman, but our core customs and values were not the same, and so a relationship beyond friendship wasn't really in the offing, even if we spent lots of time together, even if we claimed to love each other on some level.
Reading this story, I see that the situation of the adulteress is in some ways similar. Hooked to this man, she feels a desire for family, for shared times, for things she cannot have, and yet she spends hours with him, days, parts of her life. He's there for her, and he's not. Read the story here at Necessary Fiction.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
On "The Genius Meetings" by Elizabeth Crane (3255 words) ***
This story is about exactly what it's title proclaims, a series of meetings among geniuses. These geniuses discuss "great" things, as geniuses are wont to do, but when it comes to personal lives the lot of them are a mess. The geniuses are all men. There's a degree of chutzpah that goes along with genius or that goes along with claiming genius that requires that one strike out in one's own direction whether brilliant or scathingly stupid (and if one is a genius, one is lucky enough to have happened upon the brilliant). But this in turn leads to an inability to interact with others--after all, why listen to council when you are the smartest of the group? Why indeed? Perhaps because respect for others--and others' views--is the only thing that leads to happy relations with others. These geniuses, able to share with one another, remain unable to share with those of the lower strain, and thus unable to share with humanity.
Crane's story reminds me a little of people I've worked with in the past who were quick to point out their IQ scores (I've never even taken a legitimate IQ test--where does one do such and why?) or their Menda Society membership. I've always been a bit skeptical of said people. After all, if they're so smart, why are they working with me? And why a need to report their score? Anyway, geniuses can be a bit annoying, but they make for an interesting story, which you can read here at Guernica.
Crane's story reminds me a little of people I've worked with in the past who were quick to point out their IQ scores (I've never even taken a legitimate IQ test--where does one do such and why?) or their Menda Society membership. I've always been a bit skeptical of said people. After all, if they're so smart, why are they working with me? And why a need to report their score? Anyway, geniuses can be a bit annoying, but they make for an interesting story, which you can read here at Guernica.
On "Thinking in Pictures" by Temple Grandin ****
Temple Grandin doesn't think in words--she thinks in pictures. She's what is called a high-functioning autistic person. This "disability" is also a great gift. While Grandin grapples with a way of thinking that differs from most of our own, she also is the beneficiary of a way of thinking that allows her to achieve things that few of us can. And that's what this book is about: how Temple thinks, and by extension, how autistic people in general think--and feel and live.
The book is split up into various thematic chapters, including sections on the language, the senses, emotion, romance, medication, animals, genius, and spirituality. On language, Grandin describes her brain as being like a video recorder. She puts things together through a prodigious stockpile of images. Rather than thinking in generalities and moving to specifics, she thinks in specifics and moves to generalities. Say "dog," for example, and she'll think of the first dog she met when she was three years old, and then the dog that lived next door that used to bark at her, and so on. This can create issues, as the stockpile of memories grow, because one has to parse through a lot of images. (Then again, some of us who think in words are at a loss for them at times ourselves.)
She also discusses a common feature that autistic people share, which is hypersensitivity. Sounds, tastes, smells can all make autistic people feel as if they are under attack, because that humming that our electric shaver makes can sound like standing under a jet airplane to one who is autistic. Or the shaving that we do might feel like a gentle tickle to us, while it's as if the skin is being torn off to one who is autistic. These kind of hypersenses mean that effort must be taken to dull the features of our world, either through medication or through such things as softer clothing.
On the emotional level, Grandin seems to point to fear as being the one that overwhelms many like her the most. This is in part what makes it difficult for autistic people to leave structured regimens. Given a rigid way of thinking, they often work best with a plan. By rigid, I mean that many lack the ability to generalize about events to be able to make clear decisions. An autistic person might be taught to look both ways before crossing the street in front of his or her house, but the person won't necessarily equate that lesson to looking before crossing any street.
This hypersensitivity and devotion to structure, however, can also mean that autistic people can concentrate in a much deeper fashion than others, can, one might say, obsess over something. This in turns allows them to do things that most can't, such as, in Grandin's case, to see things as the cattle that she works with see things. Throughout the book, in fact, Grandin compares some things she feels autistic people have in common with animals, and this in turns leads to an interesting discussion on thought, for if what is termed nonthinking in animals is all autistic people are capable of (and some not even capable of that), then how do we claim such humans think at all? What exactly is thought in such a case?
Other things autistic people might be able to do include memorizing phone books (taking a picture in the brain of each page) or visualizing riding on a beam of light (such as Einstein did to craft his theory of relativity). In this sense, an educational system that insists that people be well rounded is a disservice to autistic people, who might be immensely talented in a narrow field of study and incapable of much in other fields. Einstein, who Grandin says may have had a mild form of autism, for example, would never have been allowed to become the genius he is considered to be if he had had to deal with today's educational system. Unable to get through certain classes at college, he worked as a patent office and then dispensed his theory to a science journal in his spare time. Such journals wouldn't be open to "amateurs" today.
The more Grandin discusses autism in the book, however, the more it seems like certain tendencies of autistic people are tendencies in each of us. And in that there is a danger. Early in the text, Grandin shows how difficult it is to diagnose the problem early on, but that, in turn, I think, can also lend to overdiagnosis, a fad of sorts, just as hyperactive disorder has become a diagnosis that a lot of fairly normal kids--that is, energetic kids--have been subjected to. Still, as a study in the phenomenon by one who lives in it each day, Grandin's book is a great read.
The book is split up into various thematic chapters, including sections on the language, the senses, emotion, romance, medication, animals, genius, and spirituality. On language, Grandin describes her brain as being like a video recorder. She puts things together through a prodigious stockpile of images. Rather than thinking in generalities and moving to specifics, she thinks in specifics and moves to generalities. Say "dog," for example, and she'll think of the first dog she met when she was three years old, and then the dog that lived next door that used to bark at her, and so on. This can create issues, as the stockpile of memories grow, because one has to parse through a lot of images. (Then again, some of us who think in words are at a loss for them at times ourselves.)
She also discusses a common feature that autistic people share, which is hypersensitivity. Sounds, tastes, smells can all make autistic people feel as if they are under attack, because that humming that our electric shaver makes can sound like standing under a jet airplane to one who is autistic. Or the shaving that we do might feel like a gentle tickle to us, while it's as if the skin is being torn off to one who is autistic. These kind of hypersenses mean that effort must be taken to dull the features of our world, either through medication or through such things as softer clothing.
On the emotional level, Grandin seems to point to fear as being the one that overwhelms many like her the most. This is in part what makes it difficult for autistic people to leave structured regimens. Given a rigid way of thinking, they often work best with a plan. By rigid, I mean that many lack the ability to generalize about events to be able to make clear decisions. An autistic person might be taught to look both ways before crossing the street in front of his or her house, but the person won't necessarily equate that lesson to looking before crossing any street.
This hypersensitivity and devotion to structure, however, can also mean that autistic people can concentrate in a much deeper fashion than others, can, one might say, obsess over something. This in turns allows them to do things that most can't, such as, in Grandin's case, to see things as the cattle that she works with see things. Throughout the book, in fact, Grandin compares some things she feels autistic people have in common with animals, and this in turns leads to an interesting discussion on thought, for if what is termed nonthinking in animals is all autistic people are capable of (and some not even capable of that), then how do we claim such humans think at all? What exactly is thought in such a case?
Other things autistic people might be able to do include memorizing phone books (taking a picture in the brain of each page) or visualizing riding on a beam of light (such as Einstein did to craft his theory of relativity). In this sense, an educational system that insists that people be well rounded is a disservice to autistic people, who might be immensely talented in a narrow field of study and incapable of much in other fields. Einstein, who Grandin says may have had a mild form of autism, for example, would never have been allowed to become the genius he is considered to be if he had had to deal with today's educational system. Unable to get through certain classes at college, he worked as a patent office and then dispensed his theory to a science journal in his spare time. Such journals wouldn't be open to "amateurs" today.
The more Grandin discusses autism in the book, however, the more it seems like certain tendencies of autistic people are tendencies in each of us. And in that there is a danger. Early in the text, Grandin shows how difficult it is to diagnose the problem early on, but that, in turn, I think, can also lend to overdiagnosis, a fad of sorts, just as hyperactive disorder has become a diagnosis that a lot of fairly normal kids--that is, energetic kids--have been subjected to. Still, as a study in the phenomenon by one who lives in it each day, Grandin's book is a great read.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
On "Finis" by Jack London (6835 words) ****
I wouldn't have expected something this brutal to have been written so early in the twentieth century, and not from the likes of Jack London. Most of the time, London's characters cling to life desperately if that's what's called for. Most of the time, if a London character is a rogue, there's something redeeming about him, something rather fun. He may be a crook, but he's good hearted, and the other people in the story know it. Not so here. In "Finis" a man sets out, like some twisted Cormac McCarthy character, to kill a party of travelers, any travelers, that happen down the road in front of him. It's them or him, he figures, and if it's death we're talking about, it might as well be them. This is a story of survival, not just against the brute forces of nature but against the brute forces of man's earnest desire to save the self at any cost. Read the story here.
Monday, May 16, 2011
On "Nur's Ark" by Rebecca Stonehill (2990 words) ***
Writing a compelling and sad story about war seems like it would be easy--except for this: one would have to live through one or very carefully imagine one. Neither is easy. Hence, one ends up with war stories that seem impersonal and generic, stories we would expect of a war. Stonehill's short piece manages to portray a family caught in the midst of a war and to do so in a personal way. She does it by focusing on a child's wish to visit the zoo and a family's with to protect the child from the world around. Read the story here at Monday Night.
On "Silent Reading and the Birth of the Narrator" by Elspeth Jajdelska **
Manguelo's A History of Reading claimed that silent reading became common in the tenth century. It was an off-the-cuff remark, not very heavily explored, and I suspect he pulled that information from another text. Jajdelska, by contrast, says the switch happened around 1700. But that's is not to say that the two actually disagree. Indeed, silent reading may have been downright strange before the tenth century, but it may not have become more common than reading aloud until the end of the seventeenth. There was, one might say, a tipping point that took centuries to complete. We could, for example, make the same case for reading electronically versus reading in print; there is a revolution taking place, one that began decades ago, that has sped up with the growing use of e-readers, and that may one day become the more common form for reading booklength works. What will that mean for reading, for writing, for the way we conceive of the word?
Jajdelska is exploring a similar theme at a time when printing--and access to printed books--was becoming more commonplace, moving from the domain of the few and educated to the common person. Before the 1700s, most readers had access to very few books. A family might own a handful--or just one, namely, the Bible. As books became more common, more people read privately. Whereas before, people read in groups. Someone read a text at a gathering, to you, to the friends beside you. Now, you can read it to yourself.
Along with this comes a tendency to no longer memorize texts. If one has only a single book and that book is to be presented orally to an audience, then one is likely over time to learn the book by heart as one recites it. This means that things like punctuation aren't as important, since it's the reader who will help the listener know exactly what the author was saying. Likewise, with more access to books, children learn to read in different ways than previously--and also read books specifically geared toward them. The first children's books begin to be published about this time. And the idea of reading for leisure, rather than for moral improvement, also begins to gain ground.
What does all this entail for readers and for the people who write for them? It means that reading moves from being a public act to being a private one, and it means that the reader is no longer a speaker but a hearer. In line with that, texts begin to change shape as well.
Jajdelska sees this different shape, in part, taking place in the punctuation that is used in texts. Jajdelska uses writings from two specific authors to make most of the book's points. This allows for close readings of texts, though, as with all literary criticism, it opens the work up to the potential of arguing something that might apply only to these authors and not to others. (Indeed, the choice of a professional--Addison--and an amateur could set up a discussion also of simply good versus bad writing.) This problem is obfuscated a little by sundry discussions of other writers in brief.
With punctuation, the essential difference is that end punctuation (periods) begins to take greater use than simply commas. The idea is that readers as speakers don't want to pause too long lest someone jump in and interrupt, whereas if one is reading on the page (listening), then one need not worry about long pauses. In fact, such signalling helps a silent reader to "hear" what a speaker would do.
Other discussions involve differences in letter writing (the idea that one writes to an individual, intimately, versus the idea that one writes for the public, as seen in differences of, say, greetings one uses) and in diary keeping (a move toward private diaries meant for no one else versus diaries intended for moral guidance to others; a move from diaries that observe the self to diaries that explore it).
Finally, Jajdelska closes with a discussion of time and place and form of narration before and after the move to silent reading. Some of the arguments I found hard to follow or not wholly convincing--rapid switches in time and/or place supposedly are conducive to reader as speaker but not as hearer--but some of the examples are also telling. One, in particular, that I found really interesting was from an expository book of advice in which the narrator leaves off providing advice to upper-class women to make an aside to those women's maids, as if the two might be in the same room listening: in this case, certainly this is reading not intended for a single audience member (just you and me) but for a crowd.
On the whole, the book provides some interesting ideas to think about, especially as the novel began to take more of the literary center. And I can't help but think about what our current shift in technology may mean for writing in this century.
Jajdelska is exploring a similar theme at a time when printing--and access to printed books--was becoming more commonplace, moving from the domain of the few and educated to the common person. Before the 1700s, most readers had access to very few books. A family might own a handful--or just one, namely, the Bible. As books became more common, more people read privately. Whereas before, people read in groups. Someone read a text at a gathering, to you, to the friends beside you. Now, you can read it to yourself.
Along with this comes a tendency to no longer memorize texts. If one has only a single book and that book is to be presented orally to an audience, then one is likely over time to learn the book by heart as one recites it. This means that things like punctuation aren't as important, since it's the reader who will help the listener know exactly what the author was saying. Likewise, with more access to books, children learn to read in different ways than previously--and also read books specifically geared toward them. The first children's books begin to be published about this time. And the idea of reading for leisure, rather than for moral improvement, also begins to gain ground.
What does all this entail for readers and for the people who write for them? It means that reading moves from being a public act to being a private one, and it means that the reader is no longer a speaker but a hearer. In line with that, texts begin to change shape as well.
Jajdelska sees this different shape, in part, taking place in the punctuation that is used in texts. Jajdelska uses writings from two specific authors to make most of the book's points. This allows for close readings of texts, though, as with all literary criticism, it opens the work up to the potential of arguing something that might apply only to these authors and not to others. (Indeed, the choice of a professional--Addison--and an amateur could set up a discussion also of simply good versus bad writing.) This problem is obfuscated a little by sundry discussions of other writers in brief.
With punctuation, the essential difference is that end punctuation (periods) begins to take greater use than simply commas. The idea is that readers as speakers don't want to pause too long lest someone jump in and interrupt, whereas if one is reading on the page (listening), then one need not worry about long pauses. In fact, such signalling helps a silent reader to "hear" what a speaker would do.
Other discussions involve differences in letter writing (the idea that one writes to an individual, intimately, versus the idea that one writes for the public, as seen in differences of, say, greetings one uses) and in diary keeping (a move toward private diaries meant for no one else versus diaries intended for moral guidance to others; a move from diaries that observe the self to diaries that explore it).
Finally, Jajdelska closes with a discussion of time and place and form of narration before and after the move to silent reading. Some of the arguments I found hard to follow or not wholly convincing--rapid switches in time and/or place supposedly are conducive to reader as speaker but not as hearer--but some of the examples are also telling. One, in particular, that I found really interesting was from an expository book of advice in which the narrator leaves off providing advice to upper-class women to make an aside to those women's maids, as if the two might be in the same room listening: in this case, certainly this is reading not intended for a single audience member (just you and me) but for a crowd.
On the whole, the book provides some interesting ideas to think about, especially as the novel began to take more of the literary center. And I can't help but think about what our current shift in technology may mean for writing in this century.
Friday, May 13, 2011
On "Star Babies" by Elizabeth Crane (4164 words) ****
I've never read a story like this. Elizabeth Crane has taken her usual elongated and random-sounding sentences and added to them an element of complete absurdity that runs throughout the work. Imagine a nation in which the normal is to be famous. No longer do people strive to become famous. Everyone is famous. And everyone hates it. Well, not everyone, but a large portion of the population, which strives to become not famous. These are people like those who drive into nature to get out of the city, who give up all the wonderful pleasures of society to commune with nature. Only, when you're famous, this is impossible. People follow. You make nature hip. There is mass interest in whatever you do, and everyone is the mass. There are vague elements of truth in this piece. I can't help but think on how the Internet has changed the way that we view ourselves and each other, how in a way we're all part of the media now, even if we don't want to be. You may not be on Facebook or Flicker, but you still might get tagged. You are known, whether you wish to be or not. Read the story here at Coachella Review.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
On "Mourner's Passage" by Matt Zepelin (5349 words) ***
T. C. Boyle has a story about a Russian bride who comes to live with a man. It's one of his best (I believe it's his story "Without a Hero"). Other than that, I've not read too many stories about mail-order brides, and I don't remember any from the point of view of the bride. (I say remember, and think that it's likely that a mail-order bride or two is part of Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club, but I remember very little of that book unfortunately.) Zepelin tells the story from both points of view, providing us with an understanding as to why either person would choose this kind of relationship and how deep bonds can be built. Told backwards, the piece starts with the bond and lets you watch, in a sense, as that bond is forged. Read the story here at Wazee Journal.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
On "All in a Name" by Garrett Socol (818 words) ***
I like this one for its narrative voice, which is light and airy and yet also precise. The voice fits with what is a light story, something to make you smile. You wouldn't think that coming from a story about suicide, but I guess that's what makes this one unique. That, and the biblical names. Read the story here at Kill Author.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
On "Friend of the Sick" by Nic Brown (3501 words) ***
Nic Brown's story tells a story about the sick in a different way. It's not an overly sentimental piece about how great this sick person is or was, how much we'll miss the person. It's about how, although this is our best friend, we continue on, concerned, but also somewhat hoping for the death--and for almost entirely selfish reasons. But our narrator isn't some misanthrope. She's just a regular person like you and me, with a set of emotions that are confused and all over the place, and life goes on, and the sick get sicker and sicker. Read all about it here at Slush Pile.
On "A History of Reading" by Alberto Manguel ***
Published in 1996, Manguel's book, I take it, probably fell toward the beginning of a span of time in history writing when cultural histories were hip. We got books on the history of dust, on the history of salt, on the history of cooking, and other such topics that, in a sense, in their vastness, don't really lend themselves to a concise narrative. And that lack of ability to confine the book to a singular narrative haunts Manguel's attempt here. But it's also why he calls it A History rather than The History.
Rather than following a strictly chronological sequence, Manguel divides his history into themes. Thus, we get chapters on censorship, on reading aloud, on the character of the nerd, on the shape of the book, on places of reading (indoor/outdoor), on writers as readers, on translators as readers, on silent versus oral reading, on the reading brain. As such, the book reads more like a set of discrete essays related to the main subject at hand than as a history, which also makes the book difficult to summarize, for what remains with me is not a story but a mood and a list of random facts. Did you know, for example, that reading aloud was the norm until the tenth century? He shares an anecdote of Saint Augustine's surprise as seeing Saint Ambrose read silently. (Another writer disputes this date, placing the silent reading era as beginning near the end of the seventeenth century. That book, I will be reading next.)
There are wonderful anecdotes and photos. We learn of slaves forbidden to read, lest they turn into rebels. We learn of books considered by the government as terrorist acts (in Argentina in the 1970s). We read of how much a translation can affect the text we receive in our native tongue--how much a translation is really one particular kind of reading. We learn of how readers "make" the text they read. We get the by-now-familiar-to-me discussion of the brain and language, the brain and books. We see pictures like the one of a library after the bombing of London, the ceiling missing, the windows blown out, the people still walking among the stacks, examining the undamaged books on their shelves.
And there is history here. Manguel offers a brief rendition of the supposed start of reading (in receipts for bills of sale), in the advantages that reading offered (the messenger no longer having to be present), in the disadvantages that worried philosophers (in the way in which memories would become lazy), and in the introduction of punctuation (especially for the purpose of allowing silent readers). But if straightforward history is what you're looking for, this may not be the best book to peruse.
It's almost as if Manguel gave up on a single narrative line because he doesn't believe there can be. In his final chapter, he offers us a hypothetical book called The History of Reading. He outlines the book's chapters and closes by denoting that the end of the book is blank because it can never be finished. One might even say that it can't really even be started. In that, Manguel expresses something that seems Borgesian in tone, and Jorge Luis Borges's influence seems to be all over this book, for Manguel, we learn early on, was the blind Borges's reader at a younger age.
Rather than following a strictly chronological sequence, Manguel divides his history into themes. Thus, we get chapters on censorship, on reading aloud, on the character of the nerd, on the shape of the book, on places of reading (indoor/outdoor), on writers as readers, on translators as readers, on silent versus oral reading, on the reading brain. As such, the book reads more like a set of discrete essays related to the main subject at hand than as a history, which also makes the book difficult to summarize, for what remains with me is not a story but a mood and a list of random facts. Did you know, for example, that reading aloud was the norm until the tenth century? He shares an anecdote of Saint Augustine's surprise as seeing Saint Ambrose read silently. (Another writer disputes this date, placing the silent reading era as beginning near the end of the seventeenth century. That book, I will be reading next.)
There are wonderful anecdotes and photos. We learn of slaves forbidden to read, lest they turn into rebels. We learn of books considered by the government as terrorist acts (in Argentina in the 1970s). We read of how much a translation can affect the text we receive in our native tongue--how much a translation is really one particular kind of reading. We learn of how readers "make" the text they read. We get the by-now-familiar-to-me discussion of the brain and language, the brain and books. We see pictures like the one of a library after the bombing of London, the ceiling missing, the windows blown out, the people still walking among the stacks, examining the undamaged books on their shelves.
And there is history here. Manguel offers a brief rendition of the supposed start of reading (in receipts for bills of sale), in the advantages that reading offered (the messenger no longer having to be present), in the disadvantages that worried philosophers (in the way in which memories would become lazy), and in the introduction of punctuation (especially for the purpose of allowing silent readers). But if straightforward history is what you're looking for, this may not be the best book to peruse.
It's almost as if Manguel gave up on a single narrative line because he doesn't believe there can be. In his final chapter, he offers us a hypothetical book called The History of Reading. He outlines the book's chapters and closes by denoting that the end of the book is blank because it can never be finished. One might even say that it can't really even be started. In that, Manguel expresses something that seems Borgesian in tone, and Jorge Luis Borges's influence seems to be all over this book, for Manguel, we learn early on, was the blind Borges's reader at a younger age.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
On "The Affair at Coulter's Notch" by Ambrose Bierce (3275 words) ****
This Civil War story of Ambrose Bierce's once again revolves around the concept of exposing the lack of glory in war, in favor of its utter depravity. A soldier is placed in charge of decimating a particular stronghold along the line. He does so but without due deference--i.e., enthusiasm--to his superiors. Much is made of this, and his actions seem near traitorous in some ways until . . . Let's just say that Bierce is working at making the theme of how wars tear families--for that's what nations are--apart into something physical. Read the story here.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
On "How He Felt" by Amelia Gray (280 words) ***
In this very short piece, a man struggles with how to get across his feelings to the world. Gray's story hints at the quintessential problem of artists--be it painters, musicians, or writers--everywhere. Only a few artists ever see their work take on the sort of emotional power in others they would hope for, and yet beyond that, because each person experiences things uniquely, it's not necessarily the same feeling. But we can delude ourselves into thinking it is--and maybe that's enough. Read the story here at Wigleaf.
Monday, April 25, 2011
On "Singing the Bone" by Alison Christy (4414 words) ****
Something is oddly chilling about this piece. I believe it's the focus on cadavers and on dissection, and yet the focus works so well here--and could work well in so many kinds of stories. Here, bodies get dissected--dead ones, but also living--as well as lives and relationships. Take two women, two spinster sisters, and throw into the middle of them a man, available, interested. Who gets him? Why? What's best? Or is love best left alone? Read the story here at Summerset Review.
Friday, April 22, 2011
On "Cleaning Up" by Rachel Furey (7227 words) ***
One wonders why our protagonist doesn't find another room while her roommate beds with a boyfriend. One wonders why the roommate would deign to touch someone else's used condom but doesn't want to touch other trash. One wonders why the protagonist likes a professor so desperately that she can't see his complete apathy toward her. Or her roommate's dismissal.
The protagonist is a scholarship student, as is her roommate. These are the smart kids. But sometimes smarts are just grades on paper or scores on tests and have little to do with real life, with living, with *doing* what's smart--which sort of reminds me of some people I went to school with, which sort of reminds me of, well, me. (At least my roommates were kind enough not to bring the women to our apartment when they thought I was around--well, most of my roommates.) Read the story here at Freight Stories.
The protagonist is a scholarship student, as is her roommate. These are the smart kids. But sometimes smarts are just grades on paper or scores on tests and have little to do with real life, with living, with *doing* what's smart--which sort of reminds me of some people I went to school with, which sort of reminds me of, well, me. (At least my roommates were kind enough not to bring the women to our apartment when they thought I was around--well, most of my roommates.) Read the story here at Freight Stories.
On "Nim Chimpsky" by Elizabeth Hess *****
More a biography of a research animal than a text on linguistics, Hess's book is an incredibly moving account of one of the chimpanzees used in the ongoing experiments in which primates are taught a human language. The findings may be fascinating, but the cost to the chimp seem formidable.
Nim was the subject of an experiment conducted by Herbert Terrace at NYU. Unlike previous chimp experiments, Terrace's project aimed to have Nim raised like a human being, while at the same time learning a new language. For this purpose, Nim was brought--at eleven days old--to New York from his earlier home in Oklahoma. His mother, we learn in the book, was used to having babies snatched from her after a week or so (in order to farm them out to waiting circuses, scientists, and "pet" enthusiasts), and she guarded Nim jealously for the short time that she was allowed to keep him. Alas, she was put to sleep, and her chimp taken so that the experiment could begin.
Terrace chose an upper-class family in Manhattan to serve as Nim's. The family was a kind of Brady Bunch, the merging of two former families. The dad, W. E. R. LaForge was from a family with inherited wealth. He'd been formerly married to a woman who, in the book's account, essentially doted on him, while he worked away in his highly conformist role. But he had a mid-aged breakdown when the 1970s rolled around, and off he went, adopting a kind of hippie lifestyle, and to that end, he joined up with another woman who also left her husband and whose own lifestyle was more in keeping with the new person that the LaForge had become. The problem: she was also highly interested in Terrace's experiment (being a former student of his), and she agreed to take in the chimp. LaForge had no real way to disagree if he wanted to keep his new wife, and not only that, he ended up paying most of the bills.
We watch over the course of that first year or so, the LaForge family break apart under the stress of keeping the chimp. And in this is the great irony. Nim breaks up many a family and a relationship along the way. He throws tantrums. He bites. He is, in many ways awful, but people love him, because he is "almost human."
Terrace needs hard numbers, so he begins insisting on training Nim in a more typical classroom manner, much to the disagreement of Ms. LaForge. The project stalls; she leaves. New "parents" take over, and then again, after another set of months, another new set of parents take over. Taking care of a chimp is stressful, and each time, the scientist doing the language experiment (who needs hard data to get grants) seems up against the family taking care of the chimp (who just want to get along).
In the end, after Nim takes a chunk out of the face of one his teacher's, Terrace decides to end the experiment. And Nim is returned to the Oklahoma facilities from which he came but at which he has never actually lived.
It is a far cry from his past surroundings. In Oklahoma, Nim lives in a cage among chimps, whereas he's grown up living in a house, among humans. The transition is stressful, though he manages to come through it all right.
Meanwhile, Terrace, who seemed bound to convince people that Nim can talk, actually comes out with a paper saying that his experiment failed and that chimps cannot usefully use language. This rather surprises many surrounding Nim. On Nim's return to Oklahoma, it's apparent that he knows how to sign, and he does it in a manner that is more fluid than most primates that have been trained, and furthermore he does it on his own initiative, in order to begin conversations. Then again, what does he really mean? As one person noted, after being bitten, Nim kept signing "bite." She had no idea whether he was trying to say sorry or whether he was threatening to bite again. We're not talking significant strings of words here.
Still, in a turnaround of sympathy, one ends up feeling a bit for Terrace. And in this is one of the book's interesting observations. To Hillix and Rumbaugh, Roger Fouts (the owner of Washoe, who also worked for a time in Oklahoma) is an absolute hero; William Lemmon, the owner of the IPS, the primate research facility, is an absolutely evil man. To Hess, those distinctions aren't so clear. Fouts at times comes across as more interested in his research than the chimps; Lemmon, a problematic figure to be sure, comes across as a person who at least has some concern for his animals--and a hard sense of just how much they aren't human and so much be treated as such at times to avoid injury. And Terrace, the cold scientist, is one of those who comes to Nim's rescue, when Lemmon, in financial straits, has to start selling off his primates to medical researchers.
Nim is shipped off to a place that is testing hepatitis vaccines. Terrace, along with a man named Bob Ingersoll and a few others, raise a ruckus, and get Nim shipped back to Oklahoma and eventually adopted by an animal refuge. The problem is that the refuge isn't used to handling chimps, and so Nim's first year there is rather a depressing time for him, cooped in a cage by himself. But finally, wisdom prevails, and someone finally gets the refuge's managers to understand that chimps are social animals and need to be among others--and so more chimps are adopted to give Nim a family.
Throughout it all, Nim continues signing, though less so with age, since fewer humans will sign back. He even teaches some of the other chimps to sign. It is a strange world that Nim inhabits. And I'm not sure, since he's cooped up in a cage, that it's a pleasant one. By teaching such animals language, we are, I suppose, opening the gateway to questions about experiments on animals in general. Just how much is the experiment worth, especially when it makes an animal unable to live in the wild but also unable to live among us?
Nim was the subject of an experiment conducted by Herbert Terrace at NYU. Unlike previous chimp experiments, Terrace's project aimed to have Nim raised like a human being, while at the same time learning a new language. For this purpose, Nim was brought--at eleven days old--to New York from his earlier home in Oklahoma. His mother, we learn in the book, was used to having babies snatched from her after a week or so (in order to farm them out to waiting circuses, scientists, and "pet" enthusiasts), and she guarded Nim jealously for the short time that she was allowed to keep him. Alas, she was put to sleep, and her chimp taken so that the experiment could begin.
Terrace chose an upper-class family in Manhattan to serve as Nim's. The family was a kind of Brady Bunch, the merging of two former families. The dad, W. E. R. LaForge was from a family with inherited wealth. He'd been formerly married to a woman who, in the book's account, essentially doted on him, while he worked away in his highly conformist role. But he had a mid-aged breakdown when the 1970s rolled around, and off he went, adopting a kind of hippie lifestyle, and to that end, he joined up with another woman who also left her husband and whose own lifestyle was more in keeping with the new person that the LaForge had become. The problem: she was also highly interested in Terrace's experiment (being a former student of his), and she agreed to take in the chimp. LaForge had no real way to disagree if he wanted to keep his new wife, and not only that, he ended up paying most of the bills.
We watch over the course of that first year or so, the LaForge family break apart under the stress of keeping the chimp. And in this is the great irony. Nim breaks up many a family and a relationship along the way. He throws tantrums. He bites. He is, in many ways awful, but people love him, because he is "almost human."
Terrace needs hard numbers, so he begins insisting on training Nim in a more typical classroom manner, much to the disagreement of Ms. LaForge. The project stalls; she leaves. New "parents" take over, and then again, after another set of months, another new set of parents take over. Taking care of a chimp is stressful, and each time, the scientist doing the language experiment (who needs hard data to get grants) seems up against the family taking care of the chimp (who just want to get along).
In the end, after Nim takes a chunk out of the face of one his teacher's, Terrace decides to end the experiment. And Nim is returned to the Oklahoma facilities from which he came but at which he has never actually lived.
It is a far cry from his past surroundings. In Oklahoma, Nim lives in a cage among chimps, whereas he's grown up living in a house, among humans. The transition is stressful, though he manages to come through it all right.
Meanwhile, Terrace, who seemed bound to convince people that Nim can talk, actually comes out with a paper saying that his experiment failed and that chimps cannot usefully use language. This rather surprises many surrounding Nim. On Nim's return to Oklahoma, it's apparent that he knows how to sign, and he does it in a manner that is more fluid than most primates that have been trained, and furthermore he does it on his own initiative, in order to begin conversations. Then again, what does he really mean? As one person noted, after being bitten, Nim kept signing "bite." She had no idea whether he was trying to say sorry or whether he was threatening to bite again. We're not talking significant strings of words here.
Still, in a turnaround of sympathy, one ends up feeling a bit for Terrace. And in this is one of the book's interesting observations. To Hillix and Rumbaugh, Roger Fouts (the owner of Washoe, who also worked for a time in Oklahoma) is an absolute hero; William Lemmon, the owner of the IPS, the primate research facility, is an absolutely evil man. To Hess, those distinctions aren't so clear. Fouts at times comes across as more interested in his research than the chimps; Lemmon, a problematic figure to be sure, comes across as a person who at least has some concern for his animals--and a hard sense of just how much they aren't human and so much be treated as such at times to avoid injury. And Terrace, the cold scientist, is one of those who comes to Nim's rescue, when Lemmon, in financial straits, has to start selling off his primates to medical researchers.
Nim is shipped off to a place that is testing hepatitis vaccines. Terrace, along with a man named Bob Ingersoll and a few others, raise a ruckus, and get Nim shipped back to Oklahoma and eventually adopted by an animal refuge. The problem is that the refuge isn't used to handling chimps, and so Nim's first year there is rather a depressing time for him, cooped in a cage by himself. But finally, wisdom prevails, and someone finally gets the refuge's managers to understand that chimps are social animals and need to be among others--and so more chimps are adopted to give Nim a family.
Throughout it all, Nim continues signing, though less so with age, since fewer humans will sign back. He even teaches some of the other chimps to sign. It is a strange world that Nim inhabits. And I'm not sure, since he's cooped up in a cage, that it's a pleasant one. By teaching such animals language, we are, I suppose, opening the gateway to questions about experiments on animals in general. Just how much is the experiment worth, especially when it makes an animal unable to live in the wild but also unable to live among us?
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
On "The Shared Patio" by Miranda July (3076 words) ****
No one I know writes quite like Miranda July. That is a good thing--for Miranda July and for her readers. I mean, would she be quite the fun writer she is if 582 other people wrote exactly like her? Not likely. Fun writers are fun because they are unique, which means that even if there are 582 other writers exactly like her, we don't know about them, and so we love Miranda July.
In "The Shared Patio," we get the tale of a lonely woman who dreams of an affair with her thoroughly average narrator. Possibly this woman has HIV. Certainly, she works for a company that prints a brochure on HIV, and she tries to have positive thoughts about everything in her world, even though she's a complete social misfit. But she shares a patio. We all share patios. Even if we don't belong on them. We share them. Everything is good. Because of patios, which we share. We, the patio users. See what I mean. Read the story here at Zoetrope.
In "The Shared Patio," we get the tale of a lonely woman who dreams of an affair with her thoroughly average narrator. Possibly this woman has HIV. Certainly, she works for a company that prints a brochure on HIV, and she tries to have positive thoughts about everything in her world, even though she's a complete social misfit. But she shares a patio. We all share patios. Even if we don't belong on them. We share them. Everything is good. Because of patios, which we share. We, the patio users. See what I mean. Read the story here at Zoetrope.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
On "My First Serial Killer" by Julie Innis (1484 words) ***
Humor is often the result of taking a low culture item and placing it among high culture or vice versa. Or taking something deadly serious and putting it into a much less serious context--or more often the opposite. Innis's story works such techniques very well, placing the serial killer story into the realm of relationship gone disappointingly mundane. By the end, one wonders which person is more crazy and smiles the whole way. Read the story here at Pindeldyboz.
On "Animal Bodies, Human Minds," by W. A. Hillix and Duane Rumbaugh ****
This book serves as a fascinating introduction to animal language acquisition. It discusses various attempts by human beings to teach animals human languages, focusing most on primates but also including chapters on dolphins and parrots. No doubt, the focus is on primates because that's where most of the research has taken place.
Whereas Stephen Pinker was dismissive of the ability of animals to learn language, Hillix and Rumbaugh are believers. Pinker comes up in this book at least once, in the second to last chapter, where the authors try to answer the objections of the various scholars who disagree with them. I found Pinker's statements to be somewhat misleading, if I am to believe these authors, for Pinker had noted that all researchers had given up on the idea of animals learning languages--including some of those included in this book--save for Rumbaugh himself. In fact, this book, written after Pinker's own, features some of those same linguists, who are still working with animals and still making various claims about those animals' linguistic abilities.
But what are the objections? Animals who have language skills may be exhibiting only behaviors that look like language but that aren't truly language. They might be picking up on subtle gestures when a human is talking and then taking those as commands. They might be learning words but failing to really understand those words other than as a means to receive some kind of reward. They might be able to use words but can't use syntax (the authors seem to go back and forth on whether primates have syntactic abilities), and if syntax seems possible, it might only be that the animal is learning strings of words rather than words alone. And on and on the problems go. After all, we're talking to some other animal. We can't get into this animal's head to know what is actually going on, just as we can't get into someone else's head to know what's going on in it.
So to what extent are even these things that some critics claim are actually going on not in themselves language? What is language? Is it not simply communication? And so, if we manage to communicate to another creature to pick up a Frisbee, are we not using language that the creature recognizes? Does a bee dance constitute language, since it communicates with other bees?
Or does language have to be something that we can use in unique ways (placing, for example, the word honey into a context not heard before and having the other creature understand, like--"touch the honey with your toe")? Does it have to qualify as more than just requests? What language is is the subject of the second chapter of the book, and it is something that the authors fail to satisfactorily answer, and that is because there is no satisfactory answer.
After that, we're introduced to the various animals and their trainers. We learn of chimpanzees and bonobos and orangutans and apes that have all been trained to use language. Some animals master close to two hundreds words, we're told; some have possibly used at one time or another up to one thousand words. Tests are recounted, including some that are supposed to guard against things like the Clever Hans effect (where a gesture acts as a command to a linguistic cue). Some are meant to test just what the creature is understanding: Can the creature separate like items from unlike items? Can the creature make a new sentence?
The authors also explore how the various creatures learn to talk. Some are taught sign language, some use plastic symbols, some use "lexigrams" (computer based images). Some are talked to with verbal language; some are only talked to in the nonverbal language chosen. But why not just use a verbal language? Some have tried, but apparently primates don't like to use their voice or may not be capable of uttering real words with the voice. One primate, for example, eventually did learn to say verbally Mama, Papa, and Cup, but never anything more. Another possibility is that voice in a monkey is too tied to emotion to be used for language (there are essentially six vocal uses among certain primates).
Techniques used vary. They include tutoring with operant-response procedures (I require you to say "I want a cookie" and reward you accordingly when you do--but this technique, as one might guess, tends to have limited value for getting a creature to use language spontaneously). They also include a more interesting (and recent) technique, wherein language is demonstrated to an animal. Two subjects talk with one another, requesting items and receiving them, in the presence of the primate, who is given the option of joining in the conversation but not directly. In this way, the primate sees how language works.
The interesting thing about this system is that it sort of mirrors the way in which one of the most successful cases of a primate learning language--the case of Kanzi. Kanzi's mother was taught to use lexigrams, but she barely got to fifty words and seemed to have little interest. But Kanzi, the child, who was present at each of these sessions picked up on these things, and when finally separated from the mom as an adult, rapidly progressed to more complex linguistic skills. Some of the creatures among this group have even begun using language with their own children, and one scientist thinks that the creatures are creating a kind of creole of English and monkey speak.
I was, coming into the text, most interested in dolphins, seals, and parrots, since I was least familiar with these language experiments. I found myself, however, less interested in these chapters than I thought I would be when I got to them. The fact that these creatures are so far away from humans anatomically means that language training with them is in some ways less interesting--one is forced to used odd systems in the case of dolphins, since there's really no means to "talk" otherwise. And the parrot, while perhaps having mastered some words in the human tongue, seems focused, at least in the discussions on the text, on requests (gimme a grape . . .), which in turn doesn't lend to much thinking on the readers part about the nature of the mind of the creature.
The discourse with primates, however, can be interesting to learn about. Unfortunately, discussions are fairly rudimentary, as one might expect. Still, there seem to be indications that conversations sometimes go beyond expressing needs and desires. And more than that, though, the techniques used with primates have been adopted for use with language-handicapped children, such that some of these children have then been able to begin speaking, although not necessarily with their mouths. Just how much animals know, to what extent they think like humans--these are fascinating questions to explore, and because we are locked into the bodies in which we have, they are questions that are not easily answered. Helix and Rumbaugh and the researchers they discuss take a stab at it.
Whereas Stephen Pinker was dismissive of the ability of animals to learn language, Hillix and Rumbaugh are believers. Pinker comes up in this book at least once, in the second to last chapter, where the authors try to answer the objections of the various scholars who disagree with them. I found Pinker's statements to be somewhat misleading, if I am to believe these authors, for Pinker had noted that all researchers had given up on the idea of animals learning languages--including some of those included in this book--save for Rumbaugh himself. In fact, this book, written after Pinker's own, features some of those same linguists, who are still working with animals and still making various claims about those animals' linguistic abilities.
But what are the objections? Animals who have language skills may be exhibiting only behaviors that look like language but that aren't truly language. They might be picking up on subtle gestures when a human is talking and then taking those as commands. They might be learning words but failing to really understand those words other than as a means to receive some kind of reward. They might be able to use words but can't use syntax (the authors seem to go back and forth on whether primates have syntactic abilities), and if syntax seems possible, it might only be that the animal is learning strings of words rather than words alone. And on and on the problems go. After all, we're talking to some other animal. We can't get into this animal's head to know what is actually going on, just as we can't get into someone else's head to know what's going on in it.
So to what extent are even these things that some critics claim are actually going on not in themselves language? What is language? Is it not simply communication? And so, if we manage to communicate to another creature to pick up a Frisbee, are we not using language that the creature recognizes? Does a bee dance constitute language, since it communicates with other bees?
Or does language have to be something that we can use in unique ways (placing, for example, the word honey into a context not heard before and having the other creature understand, like--"touch the honey with your toe")? Does it have to qualify as more than just requests? What language is is the subject of the second chapter of the book, and it is something that the authors fail to satisfactorily answer, and that is because there is no satisfactory answer.
After that, we're introduced to the various animals and their trainers. We learn of chimpanzees and bonobos and orangutans and apes that have all been trained to use language. Some animals master close to two hundreds words, we're told; some have possibly used at one time or another up to one thousand words. Tests are recounted, including some that are supposed to guard against things like the Clever Hans effect (where a gesture acts as a command to a linguistic cue). Some are meant to test just what the creature is understanding: Can the creature separate like items from unlike items? Can the creature make a new sentence?
The authors also explore how the various creatures learn to talk. Some are taught sign language, some use plastic symbols, some use "lexigrams" (computer based images). Some are talked to with verbal language; some are only talked to in the nonverbal language chosen. But why not just use a verbal language? Some have tried, but apparently primates don't like to use their voice or may not be capable of uttering real words with the voice. One primate, for example, eventually did learn to say verbally Mama, Papa, and Cup, but never anything more. Another possibility is that voice in a monkey is too tied to emotion to be used for language (there are essentially six vocal uses among certain primates).
Techniques used vary. They include tutoring with operant-response procedures (I require you to say "I want a cookie" and reward you accordingly when you do--but this technique, as one might guess, tends to have limited value for getting a creature to use language spontaneously). They also include a more interesting (and recent) technique, wherein language is demonstrated to an animal. Two subjects talk with one another, requesting items and receiving them, in the presence of the primate, who is given the option of joining in the conversation but not directly. In this way, the primate sees how language works.
The interesting thing about this system is that it sort of mirrors the way in which one of the most successful cases of a primate learning language--the case of Kanzi. Kanzi's mother was taught to use lexigrams, but she barely got to fifty words and seemed to have little interest. But Kanzi, the child, who was present at each of these sessions picked up on these things, and when finally separated from the mom as an adult, rapidly progressed to more complex linguistic skills. Some of the creatures among this group have even begun using language with their own children, and one scientist thinks that the creatures are creating a kind of creole of English and monkey speak.
I was, coming into the text, most interested in dolphins, seals, and parrots, since I was least familiar with these language experiments. I found myself, however, less interested in these chapters than I thought I would be when I got to them. The fact that these creatures are so far away from humans anatomically means that language training with them is in some ways less interesting--one is forced to used odd systems in the case of dolphins, since there's really no means to "talk" otherwise. And the parrot, while perhaps having mastered some words in the human tongue, seems focused, at least in the discussions on the text, on requests (gimme a grape . . .), which in turn doesn't lend to much thinking on the readers part about the nature of the mind of the creature.
The discourse with primates, however, can be interesting to learn about. Unfortunately, discussions are fairly rudimentary, as one might expect. Still, there seem to be indications that conversations sometimes go beyond expressing needs and desires. And more than that, though, the techniques used with primates have been adopted for use with language-handicapped children, such that some of these children have then been able to begin speaking, although not necessarily with their mouths. Just how much animals know, to what extent they think like humans--these are fascinating questions to explore, and because we are locked into the bodies in which we have, they are questions that are not easily answered. Helix and Rumbaugh and the researchers they discuss take a stab at it.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
On "Flex" by Maria O'Connell (5804 words) ***
Four ex-roommates from college decide to spend a weekend together in their old house. This seems like it might be the plot of Saint Elmo's Fire or some film like it--I don't remember. Nevertheless, I'm a sucker for the story. Maybe it's that O'Connell, while presenting a story that seems like something out of Hollywood, does such a good job with the dialogue and the characters. These are people we know. These are conversations we listen to. This is a story we remember. Read it here at Wazee Journal.
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