culture/pretension

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Culture/Pretension

On a recent visit to the Chapters bookstore at Polo Park in Winnipeg on what turned out to be the hottest day of the summer I found myself on arrival in serious need of rehydration before starting to shop.

So I purchased myself a Shaken Iced Tea Lemonade and piece of Very Berry Coffee Cake (without actually enunciating the words “shaken” or “very” myself), took a seat against the wall, and soaked up the ambience while I waited for the over half-a-cup of ice cubes I had paid an exorbitant fee for to melt. Observing the look of the other customers and noting the tenor of the conversations, I found myself pondering this question:

Are all cultures inherently pretentious? Or is it just Starbucks?

Look at them: the short, loud annoying indecisive woman faced with hundreds of decisions to make before ordering flitting madly about occupying the personal space of at least four people; the fat middle-aged man carrying an Entertainment magazine snidely excited because Larry David’s going on Broadway; the fey Asian guy lisping articulately and rapidly about grave personal drama hinging on the apparently inconsequential; the tall model-like woman somehow managing to languidly affect wearing bluejeans; the ponytailed skinny student nervously doing homework on a laptop; the two cool guys passing the time leaning back loudly enunciating the final word on whatever subject may happen to arise; a strange, nattily dressed couple in their thirties engaged in an unutterably inconsequential impassioned conversation concerning Warren Beatty (?); the connected dude alternating between his I-Pad, triple very shaken whatever, and his I-Phone, sometimes on all three at once; and one guy in a black heavy metal tee shirt with his baseball cap on backwards communing with his knapsack sitting facing him in the opposite chair.

The thing is, everyone except the guy in the metal tee and the girl with the ponytop and laptail manage to exude an unutterably insincere smugness and sense of  “this is my place, see me in it.” A conceit that comes across as “well, it’s such a bore, but one must be a presence.” Except I don’t think anyone is paying any attention to anyone else except me.

God knows what the knapsack thinks.

So I start pondering further — is pretentiousness mostly a morbid affliction of Western Society coffee depots, or is it something any society is bound to develop regardless of their cultural background? Or sources of caffeine?

I see it coming out of the coffee shop naturally as an extension of Jean Baudrillard’s thinking in The System of Objects. Give people unnecessary extensive selection of material goods, and they will come to associate their meaningless personal choices as a defining function of their being. This is my particular choice of exotic caffeine blend, so I am never quite so much myself as when I am sitting being witnessed sipping it. This might not apply to everyone, but a Starbucks would certainly draw the types who do subscribe to such facile thinking like moths to a flame.

Trying to research the subject, I find there is surprisingly little written on the subject of pretension, given how prevalent it is in our society anyway. The only information that I can find concerning pretension in other cultures and societies is that people in one culture usually regard every other culture as being pretentious.

The general definition of being pretentious seems to be acting as if you’re someone you’re not.

But I think one source I found hit the matter more accurately on the head: 

“Pretentious people overstate their style, value and opinions. They believe that anything below them should be pitied and ridiculed. Their opinion is gospel and they give out that opinion a lot. The pretentious accomplish nothing but comment on everything around them. Their way is always better. They drain the liquid plasma out of everyone's circulatory system, one unwelcomed fact and opinion after another.”

Sort of like bloggers …

“Self importance is the key here. Pretentious people are not important. Important people don't have time to tell others how amazing they are before having an actual conversation.”

Why do people act this way? Again there is no consensus, but the general opinion seems to be: a.) pretentious people have very little self esteem and need to build themselves up in what they perceive to be the eyes of the world;  b.) people are bored and are trying to add some excitement to their lives (which is ironic, since it’s also generally accepted that pretentious people are just about the most boring people you’ll ever meet); and c.) that people are trying to hide from reality. “Our fingers must be in our ears all the time - lalala, I can't hear you - just to keep out the plain sound of the real world.” (Francis Spufford)

I think some people are just clueless, myself.

But that’s probably a pretentious statement.

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REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

This week:

Chapter Five of The Twitchy Gal posted on Monday, with Chapter Six coming on Friday, August 29th at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Cyberseers and walks in the forest. But what else is in that forest? Eyes in the trees …

fundamentals?

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Fundamentals

I’m going to go out on a limb here.

It seems to me that if you’re going to write a story, the concept of setting characters in a physical place and having them interact is so completely fundamental it goes without saying. In fact, it is so self evident, having someone point out to a reader that in this story characters are set in a physical place and interact is actually insulting to the intelligence of everyone involved.

Nevertheless …

In a recent edition of the Winnipeg Free Press book column, a section was devoted to short blurbs on books coming out this fall. One of the blurbs tries to sell the novel involved by stating unequivocally that the author:

“takes four characters in various stages of their lives and brings them to a spacial and emotional intersection in the city in which they all live.”

And nothing more.

Gussy it up however you like, all that sentence says is that the novelist writes a book where she sets characters together in a physical place and they interact. And just in case you didn’t catch every nuance of the concept, the blurb makes certain you understand that this space is actually where the characters happen to live.

Wow! Do I ever want to read that! How revolutionary! To be so utterly and uncompromisingly self evident! And not worry about minor annoyances like, oh I don’t know, plot, theme, tension, specific circumstance, whatever.

I will be generous to the author here and assume she has no choice over how her novel is being publicized. We’ll assume there is more to her book than what’s being promoted. There must be! But still …

Far from being enticed to purchase this book by that blurb, I want to avoid it like the plague. It seems like the snootiest of approaches to making a sale. Like, we can tell these rubes anything if we make it sound pretentious and they’ll buy it. And why bother reading the book ahead of time to find out what it might really be about when we’ve got such a flushbrained turn of phrase ready to make it sell merely working from a natural assumption concerning the fundamentals of writing any story?

If this is what works in Canadian Literature today, obviously I’ve been approaching marketing my own material all wrong, when I’ve been sending queries out to publishers and agents.

For example, for Reality Fiction One, I sent out this description of the book:

A struggling Author acts on a vivid inspiration to self promote his unpublished works. Using the sure fire format of the popular Reality Television Elimination Show he product places his characters in a literary application of the same style – forty characters vying in thirty writing genres with the last character remaining to star in the author’s next novel.

However, the forty characters unexpectedly carry over conflicts and issues from their previous books, while unanticipated relationships blossom between personalities from different books who would never have met outside of this Contest.

Finally, the entire enterprise – and some of the characters’ lives – are placed in peril when an unnamed Antagonist arises whose unfathomable goal is to prevent the Contest from ever naming a winner.

What I should have written was something like this:

The author takes unique and sometimes repeating black marks and brings them to a combinational and significatory intersection on one page after another until implication and intention emerge.

After all, you don’t want to confuse people by implying you might actually have written something. They’d never know how to market it!

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REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

This week:

Chapter Three of The Twitchy Gal posted on Monday, with Chapter Four coming on Friday, August 22nd at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Tish wakes up.

summer reading

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

So What’s A Good Book to Read This Summer?

Ahhhhh! It’s August already, and I’m not reading enough!

Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m reading as much as I ever do really. It’s just that I haven’t selected a particular summer reading list yet. And there’s not enough of the summer left to justify picking a full one now.

I never underestimate the value of the summer read. From when I was very young, the summer read has always been a very important event. Because somehow certain books, when read in the ephemeral conditions of a Manitoba summer, are indeed just that — events, unlike fleeting literary moments spent the same way during other seasons of the year. Not that these books probably wouldn’t be good then too. But the way everything comes together in the summertime for a good read, the environment so conducive to certain stories, the way the greater sense of general ease enhances settling down with a good book in July or August …

But if I’m honest that general ease is missing for me this year as I’ve been having a somewhat stressful summer. All the more important to read then, and put myself in that more transcendent, accepting state of mind.

So, distracted as I have been this summer, I haven’t made my summer reading list yet. And time is running out!

Normally I have 30 to 40 books in the house I haven’t read yet, interspersed with biweekly trips to the Library and rereading a certain amount of volumes already in my collection as well. I have a sort of alternating system of how I work through these. But in summer, I like to break away from programming, no matter how self imposed, and choose a few select titles to peruse and savour from … wherever. Build on the freedom of the endless daylight.

In the past this has lead to some excellent reads. Last year was an exceptional summer read year. In 2013 I picked Summertime, All The Cats Are Bored, by Philippe Georget off the shelf at Chapters and started it immediately. As I’ve gone on before, that particular book may qualify as my all time favourite summer read. But I also decided it was time to read P.D. James, and worked through the first volumes in the Adam Dalgleish novels to my delight. Summer seemed the perfect time to settle down and linger over enjoying her  precision of language and slow development of a story.

This year? I didn’t pick out any of them as being specifically summer reads, but I have enjoyed these books over the last sixty days or so …

Two For Sorrow by Nicola Upson was excellent. But not precisely summery, certainly …

Mortal Causes and Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin were solid. But not quite as suitable to the season as P.D. James.

And on the downside, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood definitely did not do it for me. Permanent winter there …

But the two I’ve enjoyed the most so far have been Donald Spoto’s biography of Marlene Dietrich, Blue Angel, and Phineus Finn by Anthony Trollope. Trollope certainly qualifies as a summertime sort of author. But I’m reading him every season now, one book every three months to stretch them out. So while I loved the book, it just came up as a matter of course.

No, it’s time I picked out at least one book just as a summer read, or I’ll have wasted the whole season as a backdrop.

In that regard, I’ve considered starting Game of Thrones. Up until now I’ve refused to commit myself to that much reading until I’m certain George Martin’s going to live long enough to finish writing the story. Weirdly enough though, I had a dream about actually starting the series in the here and now, so I guess I’m ready to take a gamble on it anyway. But again, that’s a book that has larger implications reaching beyond the summer.

So, this weekend, my wife and I hit the Salvation Army, and I made a concerted effort to find something to fit the bill. From a motley selection, I came up with two titles. Bestseller, by Olivia Goldsmith, and The Emperor of Ocean Park, by Stephen L. Carter. Got a real deal, both books for 80 cents each. And The Emperor’s a hard cover too. (Apologies for buying secondhand, Stephen. And I was sad to learn that Olivia died way too young. Should I ever actually sell a novel myself, feel free to toss the fact I didn’t exactly contribute to her estate back in my face — I only wish.)

Trashy versus classy, I’m thinking. I was debating which one to make my summer read, since it’s too late for a whole list, when I gave my wife The Bestseller to take with her on her upcoming trip to Peru. So that leaves me with the Carter.

I can hardly wait. I’ll let you know how it turns out in the fall.

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REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

This week:

The beginning of a new epic! Chapter One of The Twitchy Gal posted on Monday, with Chapter Two coming on Friday, August 15th at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

What really goes on at the Reuben Memorial Tech Retreat and Resort? Explore life beyond the cloud with Tish and Brenda, as the sedation slowly wears off …

dilemma

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Dilemma

Here’s a question. Is it better to take time out from your writing when you’re on a really hot streak to write a blog about writing, or to focus on the writing which is the actual point of what you do and blog about anyway?

To blog, or not to blog, that is the question; whether tis better … 

Nah. Tis better to write, always. So not much to say on the process from the Sundog this week, because he’s too involved with the process at the moment.

But here’s some news about upcoming events.

Thirty-One Across

The final chapter posted yesterday, August 5th. Read the entire novelletta at once at http://realficone.blogspot.ca/  if you’re just getting into it. And if you’ve followed the story from the beginning, thank you for your support and I hope you enjoyed the read.

Starting Monday, August 11th: The Twitchy Gal

The full length novel officially offering closure to Reality Fiction One, as Thirty-One Across does for Reality Fiction Too! Finally made public. And hopefully a good read in its own right. The Twitchy Gal will run on the realficone.blogspot.ca site from August 11th to December 19th, 2014, in 38 instalments. UFOs, paranormal events, unlicensed licentiousness, skinny dipping, and general getting away from it all at a luxury technological retreat in the wilderness.

And beginning Monday, December 29th, 2014 …

Reality Fiction Three. The Interrupted Edition.

It had to happen.