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paperbackrevolution · 3 years

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“Book People”: a response

I have been thinking about an essay I read on Jezebel for the last while. It fit in so nicely with something I have been mulling over for months: readers. I mean serious readers. The kind of people that track their reading, that keep up with the publishing industry, that can relate to bookish memes, that overthink how their bookshelf is organized, and that seek out like-minded readers to interact with on social media. This essay, by Joanna Mang, uses a phrase for these kinds of readers: ‘Book People’. Mang uses it in a derogatory manner, and I have heard it used as such before though in those cases I believe the phrase Book Snob would have been more fitting. For Mang, Book People, are not the good sort of reader, but I want to unpack that in a bit.

Mang’s article is titled “We Have to Save Books from the Book People”. I actually only found it through a response written at Book Riot by Tika Viteri (“Back-Talking the Tone Police: Book People are Not Your Enemy”). Essentially, after rereading Mang’s essay a half dozen times (to try and follow the meandering argument and to seek what the point was) I think Mang is arguing a few things: that classics should still be taught in high school and not argued about on twitter, that English teachers bear no responsibility to encourage reading, and that Book People are bad for liking books a whole lot and have a Secret Plot to keep the publishing industry running. What any of this has to do with the title of her article remains unclear.

Mang opens her essay by complaining about people complaining on twitter. Specifically, people that are complaining about the classics they had to read in high school. The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, and Catcher in the Rye are all mentioned. Even more specifically Mang is upset at the redundancy of these arguments, that they come up again and again. I mean she is definitely correct, because once someone talks about something no one else is allowed to talk about that thing ever again. Ever. Right? I doubt it is the same person rehashing this conversation daily, more likely Mang has stumbled across or perhaps actively searched out these conversations as they are being had by different people. I mean as far as I know there are more than a handful of people using twitter, right? And if it is the same person dredging up this conversation daily, I have a suggestion: unfollow them. Problem solved. But then if that had happened, we would not have this essay to unpack.

Mang seems upset that people on twitter say that they felt forced into reading books that they did not enjoy. According to Mang anyone that disliked these books did so because these books are classics that they just failed to understand. Mang mentions that with a good lesson plan anyone can like classics, but perhaps they did not have a good teacher with a good lesson plan or maybe it is because they just did not connect with the book. Not everyone must like classics simply because they are part of the canon. A book’s inclusion within the canon does not mean that it is necessarily enjoyable to read or study for every single person. It simply means that it was influential in some way. I can recognize and value the significance of a classic novel and still also dislike the reading experience.

I did find it ironic that these conversations on twitter are doing exactly what Mang says she encourages her students to do: “When I teach literature, my goal is to give students the tools and confidence they need to attack and write about texts, to “talk to” the text rather than receive it passively” (Mang 2021). On these twitter threads we have people reflecting back on books that they were required to read in school. But because they are engaging with these texts on twitter it cannot count as the same thing? I have come across some fascinating analysis on classic books on social media that would have made my English professors proud. I fail to see the problem here.

Mang then goes on to speak about the notion of whether certain books should or shouldn’t be taught in school to avoid “turning kids off” reading, since this is often an extension of those twitter conversations. This is something that people in education have been honing for years. A quick google search reveals many theories, pedagogies and lesson plans that can help encourage reading. Teachers and other education experts are out there exploring options to encourage reading in their students. Why though? Why do we want turn children in to readers? Mang suggests that Book People have an odious plot to save the book-as-object which I will unpack in a moment. But maybe it is actually because it increases empathy? Or because it builds vocabulary? Because it prevents cognitive decline as we age? Because it is a stress reducer? Might even make you live longer? Improves general knowledge? Improves writing skills? Aids sleep? Could even help prevent alzheimers? I think it could be at least one of those reasons, especially since most of these studies explain that these benefits do not come from reading those three books back in high school but as a sustained habit over a lifetime. Though Mang, an educator, also states in her article “It’s not an English teacher’s job to make students love reading; an English teacher’s job is to equip students to read and communicate” (Mang 2021). Which I think is certainly true, but (thankfully) many other educators are attempting to go beyond the pressure to yield good test results and are still trying to help their students become readers. Of course, as Mang does mention, the formation of a sustained reading habit is based on more than a single factor (Mang mentions “parental attitudes, family wealth, the student’s disposition and other sources of stimulation”). Why this should excuse English teachers from even trying to encourage reading is lost on me. Further I also wonder what the point there is in teaching students how to actively engage with books if they are not continuing to read outside of school? Why bother with English class at all if this is the case?

I am not here to say that schools should not teach classic literature or should not encourage students to engage with the canon, I am here, however, to say that we can also all go on to complain about it on the internet afterward. If someone does not find value in these conversations, then they are free to tune them out.

After talking about education and American schools’ reading lists, Mang finally gets to the part about Book People. Mang differentiates between readers and Book People stating:

“A reader is someone who is in the habit of reading. A Book Person has turned reading into an identity. A Book Person participates in book culture. Book People refer to themselves as “bookworms” and post Bookstagrams of their “stacks.” They tend towards language like “I love this so hard” or “this gave me all the feels” and enjoy gentle memes about buying more books than they can read and the travesty of dog-eared pages. They build Christmas trees out of books. They write reviews on Goodreads and read book blogs and use the hashtag #amreading when they are reading. They have TBR (to be read) lists and admit to DNFing (did not finish). They watch BookTube and BookTok. They love a stuffed shelf but don’t reject audiobooks and e-readers; to a Book Person, reading is reading is reading” (Mang 2021).

Let’s dig into this before we get to the conspiracy. Just because I am baffled by the snobby tone of this paragraph, and I do not understand what is wrong with any of this.

A Book Person has turned reading into an identity: Just as many people do with any hobby, they tend to entrench themselves within it. People who hike seriously can and have turned that into an identity, they’re hikers. But just about everyone can walk so hikers should then not make their hobby part of their identity? Sometimes people really, really enjoy something and it becomes a big part of their daily life. What is wrong with that?

A Book Person participates in book culture: A culture can form around a social group. So, if we have a hobby group, which is a kind of social group, it is not hard to imagine that eventually a culture would build up around it. So then, yes, people would then also participate in that culture.

Book People refer to themselves as “bookworms”: What I am most puzzled by are the quotation marks, as if this nickname is something strange and new. The first known use of the phrase bookworm dates back to the 1590s and is defined as “a person unusually devoted to reading and study”. Yeah, it is a little dorky, but many hobbyists across various hobbies have silly names for the people of their hobby. Star Trek fans call themselves Trekkies or Trekkers and apparently train enthusiasts call themselves railfans. It’s a hobby thing.

and post Bookstagrams of their “stacks”: As for this, I think this is an example of a fascinating development among readers. Robert A. Stebbins, a scholar of leisure activity and hobbies, has long denied that reading could be considered a ‘serious’ hobby or what he refers to as a Serious Leisure Pursuit (SLP). He has maintained that reading is a prime example of a casual pastime, and even explores his stance in more depth in the book The Committed Reader: Reading for Utility, Pleasure and Fulfillment in the Twenty-First Century. He argues that reading cannot be a SLP due to the solitary nature of reading and the lack of a social world. To Stebbins a social world is a social network group made up of hobbyists and others connected to that hobby. Social media has changed that, however, allowing serious readers to form a social world and also find ways to make the act of reading more social itself. Book clubs have always been an attempt by readers to make reading more social. But social media allows these attempts to get closer to the mark. Readers on twitter host reading sprints to encourage people to read together at the same time. Others host read-a-longs on various platforms such as instagram to encourage a more engaging version of a book club that invites readers to read the same book section by section. And some booktubers (Book People on youtube), host live videos that invite their subscribers to grab a book and read with them. I will digress here for now, but this is something I plan on exploring more on this blog in the future. Put simply, what Mang is disparaging here is actually evidence of reading achieving SLP status under Stebbins’ hobby model. This is simply an active social world of readers.

They tend towards language like “I love this so hard” or “this gave me all the feels”: This is simply how people tend to talk on the internet? Especially amongst fandom communities, of which there is huge overlap in bookish communities. This is hardly exclusive to Book People.

and enjoy gentle memes about buying more books than they can read: memes are things people share on the internet. I am failing to see the issue with this. Again, not something exclusive to book people. What I am starting to see here is that Mang seems to take issue with internet culture in general, more so than with Book People.

and the travesty of dog-eared pages: Only Book Snobs care if other people dog-ear their own books. I am using the phrase Book Snob to distinguish between avid readers and people that find the book-as-object almost sacred. There can be overlap, certainly, but not all Book People see books this way.

They build Christmas trees out of books: No books were harmed in the making of those christmas trees. Oh, is this where the title comes in? Are we saving books from becoming christmas trees? I promise it doesn’t hurt the books.

They write reviews on Goodreads: I am confused by what is wrong with this. Mang stated earlier in her article that and I quote again, “when I teach literature, my goal is to give students the tools and confidence they need to attack and write about texts, to “talk to” the text rather than receive it passively.” How is reviewing a book not doing exactly that? Not all reviews are as aggressive as an essay can be perhaps, but it is still an act of engaging with a text rather than simply consuming it. Further, many Book People likely either have access to or want access to ARCs (advanced reader copies) from publishers and part of that deal is writing an honest review in exchange for the free copy of the book. So that would be them holding up their end of that deal. I am uncertain if Mang takes issue with goodreads in particular or with writing reviews in general.

and read book blogs: People that are active within a hobby often seek out other like-minded individuals. And beyond that most book bloggers are reviewers. Meaning people may be seeking reviews of a book to help them curate their reading selection.

and use the hashtag #amreading when they are reading: another example of Mang’s dislike of internet culture. People use hashtags to help get their media piece to others that may enjoy it or find commonality with it. They are using this form of metadata as it was intended.

They have TBR (to be read) lists: I think non-serious readers have TBR lists as well, but I think they tend to be more unconscious in nature. For example, a non-serious reader may vaguely know that there are some classics that they want to get to, or maybe the latest hyped general fiction novel. Book People are hobbyists, and if we used Stebbins’ model, they are serious hobbyists. They take their chosen leisure pursuit seriously and as such it is on their mind a lot because they intend to spend a significant amount of time pursuing that activity. So, it seems only natural that they may want to organize the content that they want to consume. It appears to me that Mang is more upset that this hobby group has formed in-group vocabularies. This means that only people residing within the group will understand some of the words or phrases used. This is a natural progression of language. You need words to succinctly capture the meaning of something. In this case, many readers have lists of books they want to read, rather than saying all of that it gets shortened down to TBR.

and admit to DNFing (did not finish): Are we saving books from not being fully read? Many of the books that Book People are reading are for enjoyment. If you are not enjoying something, why would you continue it? Do you watch the entirety of a season of a tv show that you are hating? No. Finish a snack that is making you want to vomit it back up? No. Same logic for books. To suggest you must complete a book simply because it is a book is more like Book Snob behaviour. This seems so common sense that I am again inclined to point to this as evidence of Mang’s distaste for in-group vocabularies more than the idea of not reading a book.

They watch BookTube and BookTok: This is further example of the community and social world that readers are setting up on the internet. People typically like making connections and further, making connections over something you share in common is natural. The internet made this easier, and social media has made it easier still. This is just evidence of readers seeking connections with other readers.

They love a stuffed shelf but don’t reject audiobooks and e-readers; to a Book Person, reading is reading is reading: This line is fascinating. Because following this, Mang’s article takes a turn toward a conspiracy about how Book People are trying to save the book-as-object since ereaders have threatened the physical book. And yet here, as part of her definition of Book People, she disparages Book People for finding value in ebooks and audiobooks. Mang herself becomes the Book Snob here, rejecting other book formats. Ebooks are convenient, you can have access to hundreds of books from your chosen device (I like to use my phone personally not an ereader). And audiobooks are great for when you are performing another task such as chores or driving. Both formats also allow people with disabilities better access to books. Audiobooks are perfect for people with visual impairments or who struggle to read. And with ebooks the size of the font can be changed to allow the book to be turned in to a large print book as needed and can even allow the font to be changed into a dyslexic-friendly font. To suggest that ebooks or audiobooks are not real books or don’t count as books is just blatantly ableist.

Let’s get to the conspiracy now. Mang claims that reading became an identity and a culture in response to the decline of interest in reading. She also continues on to say that not only is reading threatened by other media and diversions, but that ebooks and audiobooks distract from physical books. And so with the book-as-object threatened by television and alternate book formats, physical books became more precious. She even goes as far as to say books are fetishized. And then Mang says, “This could be why those arguing that classic books alienate young readers suggest 21st Century titles as substitutions: if we want to keep the book alive, we have to read, and more to the point buy, the books being produced now” (Mang 2021).

So let’s make this clear. According to Mang, Book People are people who have made reading an identity and revel in book culture. And Mang also already said that Book People “love a stuffed shelf but don’t reject audiobooks and e-readers; to a Book Person, reading is reading is reading”. But then Mang changes her argument and says that all of this is about the physical book. So, the people that complain about classics they read in high school on twitter, some of which are Book People, are all actually attacking classic literature because it may turn children off reading which would be bad because that would mean that less people are reading books regularly which is bad because then it means that less people are buying books which is bad because the book-as-object is precious and must be protected and perpetuated.

Riiiiight. I believe Mang conflated Book People with Book Snobs partway through this essay. They are not one in the same and by Mang’s own definition, Book People see any format of book as worthwhile. Meanwhile a Book Snob would uphold the physical book-as-object as the supreme format. So saying that Book People are behind this conspiracy simply does not hold up under scrutiny. Not that this conspiracy should carry much weight at any rate.

But then Mang wipes that argument away, saying that Book People are not that practical. That actually their purpose in complaining about classics books on twitter is solely to revolutionize American schools’ text selection policy. Further Mang seems to think that people ranting about their least favourite classic novel on social media is all about putting pressure on teachers and public education to shape their students into model human beings. When in reality, sometimes one simply needs to whine about a bad book, even if it’s a classic.

At the end of all of this, I am left simply confused about this essay. Firstly the title: “We Have to Save to Save Books from the Book People”. What books are we saving from Book People and how exactly do we go about doing it? Are we saving classics? Or are we saving the current school reading list books? Or physical books? Or ebooks? Perhaps it is that books are somehow being ruined by those that worship that book-as-object? I propose that Mang just thought it sounded good, especially seeing as how it does little to pertain to the wandering argument of this essay.

Secondly, I am also confused about what exactly is the point of this essay. The three main conclusions reached at the end of it seem to be that 1) arguing about classics on twitter does not impact text selection policy in schools, 2) teachers bear no responsibility in encouraging their students to make reading a habit, and 3) that books are not sacred objects. So what?

While I disagree with Mang’s essay, I do still find value in some of the points she brings up, and in her definition of Book People. I have been casually curious about the leisure studies, and where committed readers fit within leisure studies, for the last couple of years. Mang may not understand what she sees before her, but she did see something. It is that insight that has finally spurred me to dig into the social world of committed readers, or as Mang calls them, Book People.

#booklr #book blog #readers #bookworm #bookstagram #booktube #amreading #bookish #book people #paperback revolution

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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WORK ETHIC AND RETROSPECT

There are two things you need initially: an idea and cofounders. The sharpest criticism of YC came from a founder who said we didn't focus enough on customer acquisition: YC preaches make something people want is the destination, but Be relentlessly resourceful is the recipe for success in writing or painting, for example. It's not something you could hand to someone else to execute. Customers loved us. And so it proved this summer. Especially the type, all too common then, that was an anomaly—a unique combination of circumstances that compressed American society not just economically but culturally too.1 And I don't think there's any limit to the number who could be employed by small, fast-moving, lightweight VC fund.2 One of the best places to do this was at trade shows.3 That's made harder by the fact that the founders of Google knew, brand is worth next to nothing in the search business. In software, it means you should give users a few basic elements that they can combine as they wish, like Lego. The reason VCs seem formidable is that it's more preposterous to claim about anywhere else.

They're in a different world. But you can't have action without an equal and opposite reaction. A sinecure is, in the spam I got from botnets.4 I felt that sheepish feeling you get when you offer someone something worthless. We felt like our role was to be driven by genuine curiosity, not some ulterior motive. It may be that a significant number who get rich tend to be owned by one of them. This proves something a lot of people who visit your site will be casual visitors. People just don't seem to be very good at business or have any kind of special training.

In 1960, John McCarthy published a remarkable paper in which he did for programming something like what Euclid did for geometry.5 Because investors are so bad at judging you, you should either learn how or find a co-founder who can. But when I finally tried living there for a bit, but you had no choice in the matter, if you love life, don't waste time, because time is what life is made of. Us build this thing to make money from one of these centers. That yields all sorts of plausible justifications. I'm not writing here about Java which I have never used but about hacker's radar which I have never had to use CLOS. And it must have powerful libraries for server-based applications. Because so little money is involved.

Stephen Hawking's editor told him that every equation he included in his book would cut sales in half. What makes the answer appear is letting your thoughts drift.6 Microsoft's death: everyone can see the evolution of book publishing in the books on my shelves. I just explained: startups take over your life to a degree you cannot imagine.7 There is a kind of business plan for a new Lisp.8 In retrospect, it would seem crazy to most people outside the US. But negative lessons are just as backward as search was before Google. It's surprising how much different fields' ideas of beauty have in common is that they can't force anyone to do deals with them. And because I wasn't paying attention, I didn't notice when the shadow disappeared.9

The bad news is that I don't think fast code comes primarily from things you do.10 And they are a classic example of the dangers of deciding what programmers are allowed to want. Does anyone who wants to use your system in their whole company won't. The third reason you need them, and I got in reply what was then the party line about it: that Yahoo was no longer a mere search engine. Anyone who can write an optimizing compiler can design a UI that doesn't confuse users, once they choose to focus on that problem.11 Your tastes will change. I had bought the hype of the startup world want to believe this comes from the city's prudent Yankee character. And in startup hubs they understand it.12

Notes

Treating high school kids arrive at college with a woman who, because what they're capable of.

7% of American kids attend private, non-broken form, that it even seemed a plausible excuse.

What drives the most important information about competitors is what the editors will have a lot easier now for a startup is a case of the world barely affects me. And you should be clear.

The dictator in the mid 1980s. Back when students focused mainly on getting a job where you have no idea how much they lied to them unfair that things don't work the upper middle class first appeared in northern Italy and the super-angels tend not to. Google's revenues are about two billion a year for a long time by sufficiently large numbers of users to observe—e. Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2005.

I'm claiming with the amount—maybe not linearly, but all they could attribute to the year x in a spiral.

5% of Apple now January 2016 would be taught that masturbation was perfectly normal and not others, no one is going to call the years after 1914 a nightmare than to call all our lies lies. 94 says a 1952 study of rhetoric was inherited directly from Rome. And no, unfortunately, I can imagine what it can buy. And if you did so, or Seattle, 4 in DC, 6 in Chicago, 8 in London, 13 in New York, and no doubt partly because it was so widespread and so effective that I'm skeptical whether economic inequality, and how good you are not in 1950 something one could reasonably be with children, with number replaced by gender.

Anyone can broadcast a high-minded Edwardian child-heroes of Edith Nesbit's The Wouldbegoods.

54 million, and FreeBSD 1.

I wouldn't say that it offers a vivid illustration of that. Or lack of results achieved by alchemy and saying its value was as a high product of number of big companies, but the nature of the big winners if they do the opposite: when we created pets. Odds are people in the top and get pushed down by new arrivals.

In some cases the writing teachers were transformed in situ into English professors. Google and Facebook are driven by money—for example, being a doctor. Indifference, mainly. Because they want to get great people.

You leave it to get kids into better colleges, I mean no more than most people will pay for health insurance derives from efforts by businesses to use those solutions. I was not in the old version, I didn't need to run on the group's accumulated knowledge.

And while they think the main effect of low salaries as the web was going to eat a sheep in the time it would have turned out to coincide with other investors doing so because otherwise you'd be surprised how often have valuation caps, a proper open-source projects now that VCs may begin to conserve board seats by switching to what you learn via users anyway.

Thanks to Robert Morris, Alex Lewin, Peter Norvig, Geoff Ralston, Jackie McDonough, Aaron Iba, and Cameron Robertson for inviting me to speak.

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frantzfanonarchives · 5 years

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Fanon’s fugitive archive

Christopher J. Lee

A new, massive collection of published and unpublished works by Frantz Fanon, reveals his intellectual and political motivations, but also proves him enigmatic and inscrutable as ever.

Frantz Fanon was born in 1925 on the Caribbean island of Martinique. He died from cancer in 1961 at the age of 36 in a hospital outside of Washington, DC. In between, he lived in France, where he received a medical degree from the University of Lyon; in Algeria, where he worked at a psychiatric hospital in Blida, near Algiers; and Tunisia, where he continued his clinical research and wrote for Algeria’s anti-colonial Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), a cause he joined while in Blida. He spent shorter periods of time in Accra, Bamako, Conakry, Moscow, Paris and Rome. All told, from a biographical standpoint, Fanon’s frequent movements remain a source of fascination. From a research standpoint, however, these movements are something of a disaster.

Alienation and Freedom, a new collection of Fanon’s writings edited by Jean Khalfa and Robert J. C. Young and translated by Steven Corcoran, is an attempt to alleviate this problem of documentation—in essence, to create a posthumous archive of his work which thus far has been scattered across the aforementioned places in state repositories, medical libraries, university collections and private hands. This book is therefore indisputably a gift, a cause for celebration. First published in French by La Découverte in 2015, Alienation and Freedom is the first major collection of new writing by Fanon to be published in more than 50 years, since the 1964 release of Pour la révolution africaine (Toward the African Revolution), translated into English in 1967.

As such, this volume uncovers a wealth of detail and a revised biographical outline of Fanon. Though it naturally conforms to the life of activism that is well known, this book provides firsthand information about his medical interests, confirms past rumor about his decision-making with evidence, and offers a few surprises, especially with regards to his early writing and personal correspondence. Most significantly, Alienation and Freedom shows us the rough edges of Fanon’s thinking, much of which has been worn smooth through decades of scholarship. A fine-grained sense of his views across the fields of psychiatry, philosophy, and politics over a brief, but intense, period of a dozen years is at hand. Indeed, the uneven quality of the collection—a mix of published and unpublished material by Fanon, plus supplementary material by others—imparts an unusual effect that both further explains Fanon’s intellectual and political motivations while also generating new questions that leave Fanon as inscrutable as ever. Fanon is that rare figure who manages to become more enigmatic through further revelation. The wellspring of this elusiveness is undoubtedly due to his personal geography and the contrasting dimensions produced from his unsettled life. This book’s title captures these contrasts. Alienation and Freedom in content and form reflects the peregrinations of a restless man whose experience of racism led to personal self-determination, who chose intellectual commitment over social status, who embraced the risks of political involvement rather than accept a secure middle-class livelihood.

Divided into five sections with 55 chapters in total, the vast majority consisting of pieces either authored or co-authored by Fanon, Alienation and Freedom undertakes a chronological approach that ranges from his early, unpublished work during his student days at Lyon to a posthumous cataloguing of his personal library. In between, the bulk of the book is committed to his psychiatric research, with 27 chapters, nearly half of the volume, spent on this dimension of his writing. In addition to the main introduction, a shorter introduction is provided for each part, along with annotations, photographs, illustrations and a chronology of Fanon’s life. In short, Khalfa and Young leave few stones unturned.

It is perhaps entirely appropriate that, given Fanon’s dramatic life, Alienation and Freedom should begin with his attempts at writing drama during his time at university. Part I regards this brief corpus of two plays, The Drowning Eye and Parallel Hands, which both date from 1949. The existence of these plays has been known and written about; their inclusion here exemplifies the public archival nature of this book. Despite their brevity, these plays present a distinctly literary side of Fanon—a rare angle in his library of work. As Young discusses in his thorough and insightful analysis that introduces this section, this work not only bears the imprint of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, as often understood, but also Aimé Césaire, Fanon’s former teacher and intellectual predecessor, whom he would later grapple with in the pages of Black Skin, White Masks (1952). These two plays are experimental, philosophical dramas that concern issues of language, recognition, identity and politics. They possess qualities of surrealism and abstraction that foreshadow his later essays.

The Drowning Eye is a one-act play with five scenes (one is missing) with the main character named François—a variation on his own name, Frantz—who struggles with his identity. Young observes that like Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks, François is caught “in an irresolvable dialectical bind between black and white, past and future, body and world, desire and insentience, consciousness and transcendent immanence.” However, despite Césaire’s influence, The Drowning Eye is not a Négritude work per se, with race residing in the background. Parallel Hands is similarly allegorical, a four-act tragedy set on a fictional Greek island that presumably serves as a stand-in for Martinique. Written in a formal, faux classical style, Parallel Hands concerns a situation of regicide that upends the social order leading to chaos and violence. This work is arguably less successful, retaining a sense of overwrought melodrama through its elevated archaic pitch. (“Low down, very low down, I looked for the causes of Worlds! Tenaciously I interrogated crystallized beliefs!”) But like The Drowning Eye, this play also establishes questions, if in rough form, that Fanon would continue to address in his later work, in this instance the antinomies of revolution.

Part II turns to Fanon’s psychiatric writings from 1951 to 1959, including the thesis he submitted to Lyon to graduate—the latter a surprise inclusion. As Jean Khalfa writes in his equally thorough introduction to this section, this body of work has long been ignored due to the availability and stress on Fanon’s political writing, the technical nature of his scientific articles, and the dated nature of his research, with its concern for such treatments as electroshock therapy, as it was then used. Nonetheless, Khalfa insists on the significance of this scholarship due to its fundamental importance to Fanon’s professional life. It also underscores Fanon’s constant attempts to synthesize the social and the scientific, subjective experience with the congenital mechanisms of human psychology. This sociogenic approach, already present in his student thesis, promised a comprehensive understanding of alienation and therefore freedom—not solely in a psychological sense, but in a social and political sense as well.

His research articles, dating from 1953 and his residency at the Saint-Alban Psychiatric Hospital where he worked with François Tosquelles, the famed Catalan psychotherapist, are undoubtedly academic and can make for hard, esoteric reading, depending on one’s level of commitment to descriptions of how patients responded to certain treatments. Of greater interest are the broader ideas at play. What is “treatment”? Should “therapy” focus on the individual, or can it be scaled to the group or the institution? What kind of relationship should there be between medical approaches, such as electroconvulsive therapy, and social approaches, like group therapy? Put differently, how is psychological “health” to be defined in relation to the medical and the social? Fanon’s sociogenic approach to psychiatry was enhanced through his work under Tosquelles, who served as the lead author on their jointly produced work and himself sought to synthesize Freud and Marx. Fanon’s later research papers, both published and unpublished, from his time at the Blida-Joinville Hospital with titles such as “Social Therapy in a Ward of Muslim Men: Methodological Difficulties” and “Daily Life in the Douars” point to the transfer of these methods to the colonial context. These chapters hark back to his classic, first academic article “The ‘North African Syndrome’” (1952), republished in Toward the African Revolution, as well as prefigure the sociological pieces in A Dying Colonialism (L’An Cinq, de la Révolution Algérienne, 1959). Part II also includes editorials by Fanon from newsletters at Saint-Alban and Blida—casual pieces that nonetheless cast light on Fanon’s day-to-day thinking and routine. Another surprise in this section is the inclusion of a set of lecture notes by Lilia Ben Salem, a former student of Fanon’s, entitled “The Meeting Between Society and Psychiatry” based on a course he gave in 1959 and 1960 at the Institut des Hautes Études in Tunis. These notes provide a tantalizing, if fragmentary, glimpse of Fanon as a teacher on such topics as ego formation, racism in the United States, and colonial labor.

Part III returns to more familiar terrain with a collection of chapters consisting primarily of essays drawn from the FLN’s journal El Moudjahid. These writings complement those already collected in Toward the African Revolution with familiar subjects such as Patrice Lumumba, Charles de Gaulle, and what Fanon called “the Bandung-Accra axis.” The writing and editorial process at El Moudjahid was known for being collective and anonymous, and Khalfa carefully explains their selection here. Indeed, along with his co-authored psychiatric articles, more attention should be drawn to the collaborative nature of Fanon’s writing life. Also included in Part III are the speech Fanon gave at the Accra Positive Action Conference in April 1960 (“Why We Use Violence”) and a brief letter sent to the Iranian revolutionary Ali Shariati, in which Fanon expresses a respectful disagreement over the use of Islam (and religion generally) as an ideological source for revolution. Parts IV and V make up the shortest sections of Alienation and Freedom, the former consisting of commentary and correspondence about publishing Fanon’s work in France and Italy and the latter presenting a catalog of Fanon’s personal library. Though cryptic and somewhat predictable—Freud, Sartre, Hegel, et cetera—the listing of books he owned is revelatory in its way. Among Marxist thinkers, Mao predominates—unsurprising given Fanon’s emphasis on the peasantry forming a revolutionary vanguard. But it is also clear that, as a reader, Fanon was firmly situated in a western philosophical tradition.

At almost 800 pages, Alienation and Freedom is a massive text that is difficult to summarize. It is not intended as an introduction to Fanon. It will not displace his classic works, Black Skin, White Masks or The Wretched of the Earth. In fact, one critique that might be leveled is its size. The heft and bagginess of this book does have a certain appeal, conveying in palpable form the sheer weight of Fanon’s writing and the multitude of interests that preoccupied him. I personally like this archival approach. But the publisher might consider breaking this book into separate smaller books—a volume of his plays, his medical writings, and so forth—that could be more focused and easier for reading and teaching. Nigel Gibson, the author and editor of several books on Fanon, has a forthcoming edited work that also collects Fanon’s psychiatric publications. Scheduled for release in early 2019, it can be presumed that there will be overlap between this book and Alienation and Freedom. Gibson has co-authored with Roberto Beneduce a preceding examination of Fanon’s medical research and his role in developing a critical ethno-psychiatry in Fanon, Psychiatry and Politics (2017). This psychiatric approach was also examined more than 30 years ago now in Frantz Fanon and the Psychology of Oppression (1985) by Hussein Abdilahi Bulhan.

Yet it is unclear if this renewed emphasis on Fanon’s psychiatric research will lead to a fundamental revision as to how Fanon is treated and understood. Certainly, it is important to restore this dimension to his life as a matter of historical record and intellectual history. Furthermore, his scholarship should find a permanent place in the history of psychiatry, not just the history of decolonization. However, when read alone, much of Fanon’s psychiatric writing appears more limited in potential elaboration and application for humanists—his main audience today—than, for example, the related ideas of Michel Foucault and Georges Canguilhem. Fanon was a practicing psychiatrist who, in his research findings, wrote for other professional psychiatrists. These academic articles in Alienation and Freedom therefore frequently contrast with his radical innovations at synthesizing different fields of knowledge in Black Skin, White Masks.

Given the magnitude of Alienation and Freedom, it should also be stated that some possible avenues are neglected. Fanon’s wartime service with the Free French forces has often been overlooked, even though the experience marked his first encounter with the effects of violence, the possibility of ending political injustice through armed struggle, and Algeria itself. Documents from this period of his life have been absent.

Similarly, Josie Fanon, whom he married in 1952, remains as enigmatic as ever, despite her vital role in transcribing his work while he was alive and promoting his work after he died. She was famously private, and she is primarily known through a handful of published pieces and secondhand accounts, such as one by Assia Djebar in Algerian White (1995), in addition to indirect reports from various memoirs of Fanon. A project on her life is needed.

These limitations of Alienation and Freedom in the face of its comprehensiveness ultimately point to the ways that Fanon continues to elude scrutiny from critics and admirers alike. This continual evasion should not necessarily be read as a willful choice on his part, but instead as an enduring effect of the conditions of racism and colonialism he confronted and threw himself against. His library of work and the textual fragments of his life outside of his major books constitute a fugitive knowledge, a subterfuge against the conformities of power—state, social, academic and otherwise. These collected writings in Alienation and Freedom are therefore not materials for the reconstruction of a life. They are the life.

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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years

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Split Single Interview: The Grift Is On

Photo by Nathan Keay

BY JORDAN MAINZER

After five years, Jason Narducy’s got a lot to say. Amplificado (Inside Outside Records), the new third album from Split Single, his solo project with a rotating cast of musicians, was mostly written and recorded by June of 2019. Its themes of Trump-era urgent anger were only heightened by a global pandemic that exacerbated many of the issues that rose to the surface in an era of political turmoil.

Since his second Split Single album, Metal Frames, came out, Narducy’s been nonstop touring and recording with Superchunk and Bob Mould, not to mention writing a musical, Verböten, named after and about his childhood punk rock band. Any free time’s been spent on canvassing for Democratic state legislature candidates, Narducy feeling like he needed to stay politically involved and motivated. There’s no more perfect soundtrack to his exhausted mind than Amplificado’s opener, titled and stylized “caPtAIN calamity’S crUde pRoCessiON”. The off-kilter, minute-long instrumental is less purposeful avant-garde experimentalism than 6th grade marching band practice with weird ringtones going off, as percussionist Dan Leu’s tempos change nonsensically and Narducy introduces tack piano and sound effects of cash registers. The song’s got a lot of hidden meaning, as Narducy would explain to me in a phone interview in early May, but from the surface, it’s most significant as a way to let the listener know that the rest of the record--for the most part quintessential Split Single power rock--was born from this place of confused chaos.

Indeed, besides the opener and the honest, stark “Adrift”, Amplificado is big and burning. “Blood Break Ground” is a song about breaking out from oppression. “Condescension comes with a price / Tear away all lingering ties,” Narducy belts, with drummer Jon Wurster providing propulsive blasts and the other main bandmate here, none other than R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, on bass and backing vocals. “Stone Heart World” calls out GOP hypocrisy, self-described “pro-life” politicians who speak about “barefoot children holding on to desperate mothers” as “others” and “animals.” Lead single “(Nothing You Can Do) To End This Love” is just as pressing, but positive, a message of support for the LGBTQ+ community.

As much as Amplificado deals with serious issues, from the pandemic-addled depression and isolation-themed “Worry” to songs like “Blood Break Ground”--the guy behind “The Sexiest Elbows in Rock Music” hasn’t lost his sense of humor or storytelling. Narducy writes about a formative childhood experience with a music teacher on “Bitten by the Sound”, a character in dire straits on “Belly of Lead”, and a ditty about aging inspired by being yelled at by his dentist on “Mangled Tusk”. And maybe the funniest thing about the album is its bio, written by comedian Jon Glaser. (“It has always been a dream of mine to write a bio for the third album of a somewhat known indie band,” Glaser writes, as he then goes on to describe his lunch, nightmares, and video game playing that preceded him writing the actual few-sentence bio for the record.) If you’ve ever seen Narducy play, whether on one of his many lawn shows he did last summer through SPACE in Evanston or opening for Guided By Voices, you know he, too, is both earnest and genuinely hilarious.

Read my interview with Narducy about Amplificado below, edited for length and clarity. He’s got a sold out record release show tomorrow night at 7 PM at Sketchbook Brewing Co. in Skokie!

Since I Left You: When you were writing the lyrics to these songs, did they come instantly or were they workshopped? They feel very emotional and direct.

Jason Narducy: Sometimes they took a while. The song “Mangled Tusk”, the demo was called “Jangle Tusk” because the guitar part felt like jangle pop to me. It was just a working title. The drum beat on the demo, which we didn’t end up using on the record, was kind of like Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk. It reminded me what song it was, instead of calling it “Song Number 32″ or whatever. I was recording vocals, and “Jangle Tusk” was last, and the recording engineer at Electrical Audio, Taylor Hales, asked, “When do we get to work on ‘Jangle Tusk’?” And I responded, “I don’t know, I’m still working on lyrics on that one...you’ve never even heard it, why are you so excited to work on that one?” He said, “I love the title!” And I thought, “I’ll put some thought into that, but those two words aren’t conjuring that much imagery for me.” I really like the word “mangled,” and I had just gone through this ordeal with my teeth and having to wear a nightguard. [laughs] So I started writing lyrics about gnawing and the enamel chipping away. It’s a song about aging, in a way, but I got that stern talking-to from my dentist: “We made you a nightguard years ago and you didn’t wear it, we made you one four years ago and you didn’t wear it, we’ll make you another one and you have to wear this.” I said, “That’s all I have to hear! I’ll wear it every night.” Those lyrics just came based on an odd encouragement from the engineer that liked one other word.

The process of writing is so strange. With “(Nothing You Can Do) To End This Love”, the lyrics came so fast, and I was just done. I might have written the bridge this year, but the verses and choruses are the heart of the song. There’s a song we recorded called “3/4″--again, a working title based on the time signature--but we couldn’t get lyrics to it, so it’s sitting on the curb, lonely, without words attached to it. Lyrics are last for me every time. “Belly of Lead”, I was recording the demo in my friend Grant [Sutton]’s house, Clampdown Studio. I didn’t have lyrics to the song, so I picked up a lyric book of Lead Belly’s songs, and I was reading random words off every page so I’d have something documented on the demo. From that, I came up with the word “Belly of Lead” and wrote a story based on someone who made poor decisions in their life, coming to the end, trying to write a letter to his son and others, saying goodbye.

SILY: Was this your first time working with Mike Mills?

JN: I had opened up a show for his group The Baseball Project. I met him a number of times, the first time at the 40 Watt Club in Athens in 2006, when Jon and I were playing with Robert Pollard from Guided By Voices. Mike Mills was at that show, and Jon knew him--Jon actually recorded with R.E.M. on one of their Christmas singles. But he introduced me back in ‘06, and throughout the years, we’d run into each other at shows, or Scott McCaughey would be coming through. Just a lot of mutual friends. We always got along great. I didn’t expect him to say yes when I asked him to record. I felt like it was a longshot. I’m really grateful. I like him as a person and am a huge fan of his work with R.E.M.

SILY: What are some of the Easter eggs in the opening track’s title and aesthetic?

JN: There are a lot of layers, for it being a 1-minute instrumental. This [album] is my re-entry into doing Split Single work, since the last one came out in 2016. I write pretty consistently, so there were some songs I had the ideas down for already. But because I was so frustrated with the direction our country was going in, I kept putting down the guitar and thinking, “I can’t do this right now, I need to get out and do something.” I became very involved in this group called Sister District [Project], and I was doing postcard parties where I’d gather friends and others from the community and started working on state senate races across the country. It was very rewarding work. It provided some camaraderie with others who were wondering what the hell we could do. It also had an impact. I canvassed with a state senate candidate in Michigan, I wrote postcards for state senate races all across the country. Thankfully--and I think this has to do with the technological vetting Sister District does--all the candidates we worked for won. That was rewarding. It felt like I had an impact. I was also working on a musical about my very first band Verböten, and that took up a lot of time. Between Verböten and activism, my focus wasn’t on making another Split Single record. Plus Superchunk and Bob Mould were very busy making and touring records.

Back to the song: I wondered if there was a short audible message that I could make that was a little bit of a set up song. “Blood Break Ground” is such a gut punch, so how could I set this up after four and a half years? The sound of that marching band is sort of what I was feeling and hearing during those years. “That’s not supposed to be there: Why is there a tack piano in the marching band? This tempo isn’t right. Why is it slowing down now?” I put in an old cash register sound, so [it’s like] the grift is on. This is all about making money. If you look at the title, if you look at the letters in the title that are capitalized, it spells “PAIN IS UR CON”.

SILY: Sequencing-wise, you have “Adrift” as the emotional and personal centerpiece. It’s not outwardly political like the other songs. It’s also very downtempo. Did you consciously try to mix the album up in terms of tempo, aesthetic, and subject matter?

JN: There’s a defiance in the first three songs [after the opener]. I thought “Adrift” was a really strong song that kind of sounds like an album closer, but I didn’t want to put it last because I felt like it was too important. It was very difficult to figure out what would come after it, since it was so different. “Bitten by the Sound” has that long intro that builds up, so I thought it was a good transition. You can hear thematically how “Belly of Lead” is a completely different, not personal story, and [the album] closes with “Worry” and “Satellite”, which are very personal. Overall, the up-tempo songs are the ones I’m excited to play live. Besides “Adrift”, you could play all of them that way.

SILY: On “Belly of Lead”, you sing, “My word will make no difference.” Your experience with Sister District Project was the antithesis of that sentiment, but was that line in any way referential to anxiety you had about speaking out?

JN: No, that was just the character [in the song]…in “95 Percent”, though, I addressed something I felt and that a lot of liberal-minded Americans feel, which is we’re very clear that we’re not 100% behind the ones we support. There are things I disagree with Barack Obama about. We’re not a part of a cult. I support equality and equity and true justice, not law and order justice, as the other side claims.

SILY: On “Bitten by the Sound”, you sing, “Sat in a classroom led by an old nun / Sister thought she knew all about rock n roll / But instant karma got the best of her / When she lied about holding Lennon’s hands in her own.” What’s the story behind that line?

JN: I had a music teacher that was a nun in 6th grade. She had a story about meeting John Lennon and holding his hands in hers and giving him advice. Even [as a] 6th grader, [I] looked around and thought, “She’s full of shit.” Now that I’m older, I think if you’re gonna want to impress people and make up some bullshit, why pick a famous person who just died who can’t back up the story? It was part of my childhood that affected my relationship with authority and trusting adults. Music was everything to me, so don’t fuck with that! Don’t make up a John Lennon story. In the song, I talk about that. I was 9 or 10 years old, and my mom lived on the South Side of Chicago, 53rd and Woodlawn, and we woke up one morning and looked out the window, and her car was sitting on brick. All 4 tires were stolen. I just didn’t even know that was a thing. Those are formidable years. You discover music and find solace and peace. Everything feels good with music when everything around you is shaken and uncertain.

SILY: I don’t know whether it’s the mixture of the Christianity and the rock history references, but I heard the line and could hear Craig Finn singing it.

JN: That’s funny. I should mention that I was not at a Catholic school, which is why it’s weird a nun was teaching a music class. That song not so much [musically]. I think the song “95 Percent” definitely has some Hold Steady in it. There’s something about The Hold Steady that’s unabashed, “We’re gonna play rock and roll.” It’s a cool thing. “Yeah, I’m gonna take a guitar solo here.” It’s not too-cool-for-school indie rock. “95 Percent” was influenced by Mac [McCaughan] from Superchunk, a little bit of Springsteen, a little Hold Steady. Just need to add a girl’s name, and it would be very Hold Steady.

SILY: Were there any other prominent or newfound influences on this record?

JN: “Adrift” is so different for me. I learned this from Bob Mould: He writes way more songs than the record needs. You never know. A number of times, he’ll have a song that he thinks should be a B-side, and I’ll raise my hand and say, “I think that should be on the record.” “Fire in the City” is an example of that. I was like, “This song is too good.” It ended up on Beauty & Ruin. We don’t always end up using it, but it’s a good influence. I went into this record and thought, “I have extra time--it can’t hurt to keep going.” I ended up going back to a power pop song that I don’t even know had a title. There was one part of it I really liked. I picked up an acoustic guitar and didn’t even have a pick near me. I strummed the chords with my thumb very quietly and slowly and “Adrift” just fell out. Words and everything, just super fast. I had never recorded a song that vulnerable, that personal, that dark. I don’t think I’ve recorded a song without a guitar pick either. You can hear my stomach growl at some point.

It just so happened I got a text from Alison Chesley who was in Verbow with me, and I asked, “Can I send you a song? Can you put some cellos on here?” She came back with this beautiful arrangement and even a piano part. I think it really elevated it and made it a much more engaging song. That’s the first time Alison and I had recorded in 22 years.

SILY: I thought maybe the experience of looking back with Verböten inspired you to reach out to her. It’s funny that it was just a random text from her that started it.

JN: I think the musical influenced this record in two ways. Not that one. I wrote so many punk rock songs for Verböten, that it reminded me that I like it when I write up-tempo songs. I definitely pushed more high energy songs for the record. [And the other is] “Blood Break Ground” happened because I had to do so much revisiting of emotions from my childhood [for Verböten] that there were other parts of my childhood that I hadn’t addressed yet.

SILY: How did the album’s bio come about? Did you want Jon Glaser to write a legitimate bio, and he came back with something absurd instead?

JN: I mean, he’s a comedian. I know it’s the job of the publicist and the journalist to have as much information presented as possible, but I also think there’s value in not taking it too seriously.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the record title?

JN: The trauma of the Trump years combined with the incredible trauma of the pandemic, which will take a very long time for many of us to recover from. I feel like everything’s amplified. I thought about calling the record Amplified but found that there were a lot of other albums called that, and it was also a pretty basic word. So I thought, “What’s a little twist we can put on that?” A friend of mine, Alberto, is fluent in Spanish, so I asked him for the proper version of that word for this situation.

SILY: What about the cover art?

JN: That’s a Chicago artist named Yvonne Doll. I follow her on Instagram and have been friends with her for years. She’s a musician and a painter. That particular piece came up, and I couldn’t stop looking at it, so I asked whether we could use it for the artwork. Thankfully, she was cool with that. When I presented that and some other photos, the designer, [Chris Tillman], ran with that red theme.

SILY: How was the experience of playing lawn shows during the pandemic?

JN: It was incredible. I was so thankful to Jake [Samuels, Managing Partner and Talent Buyer] and SPACE for coming up with the concept and thankful that people were enthusiastic about doing them. I did about 53 of them last year. It sort of emotionally and financially saved me. I loved how creative it was. I could tell you so many crazy stories about different situations like planning for a rainstorm to come, a small crowd, a huge crowd where the cops showed up. It was great. I’m excited to do more of those.

On Saturday, I played at Thalia Hall to a private show of 20 people. It was honestly euphoric. It was the first rock club show I had done since January 3, 2020 with Superchunk at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro. So many things that I hadn’t thought about, like setting up on a stage and the camaraderie with the crew and talking about different lighting setups and sound options, walking to the dressing room. It was incredible. It felt so good. Even for 20 people. And they were there to party. They weren’t just sitting down drinking wine. They were standing up, dancing, leaning up on the stage and screaming. It’s gonna take time, and it needs to be safe, but certainly with the outdoor shows, there are a lot of options being explored, and hopefully by the fall, there will be many more people vaccinated.

SILY: The album’s really up-tempo, as you’ve said. Have you thought about adapting these songs to a solo style of play?

JN: I think any of the songs besides the marching band one I could do live.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading that’s caught your attention?

JN: Oh my god, there are so many new bands I’ve been listening to. New Pagans. There’s this band called Kestrels. It’s very 90′s, like if Built to Spill or Dinosaur Jr. had a baby. CONTROL TOP. I like the new Real Estate record. Sinai Vessel. I love that English band Shame. I think their new record’s really cool. Miss Grit. I get really inspired by newer artists. It’s something I spend a lot of time with.

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ranumba · 6 years

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Walking Down The Memory Lane of 2017

Over than 350 days passed by, and here we are at the end of the year. Where our mind can’t help but try to remember the path we’ve been through in each of the days. For me, if I have to be honest this is a year of self-acceptance. As I step into adult life as 23 years old young woman, this is the stage where mostly people said as a “quarter life crisis”. I have nothing to argue because I admit the validity on this. This is the moment where most of people on my age and I have to decide a step between choices in front of us. The dilemmatic post-graduation phase whether to decide what to do next, working in public or private company, working in high reputation company or moderate one, stick to the idealistic by working in a place that suit our background or deliberately change our direction by crossing another lane. There are more, whether to decide continue to master study or focus to find a new passion, for those who already with significant other maybe they will think about tie the knot first, or pending it, some others might still alone but eager to find one and anticipate a happy marriage as soon as possible. There are too many options to choose, and each of those is not an easy-bitsy choice as a lot of consideration followed. Your future might depend on your decision today. And the decision I’ve made for this year lead me to a lot of learning values of self-acceptance. Where the reality say differently toward my expectations and force me to accept everything with an open hand.

I imagined that by end of this year i would obtain my scholarship for my master program abroad and depart to my dream university at the first month of 2018 and experience my very first winter in my whole life, but what happened is I am here typing my year end post in my comfy bedroom inside my home sweet home and January 2018 I will still here. Dude the reality already spoke different about this expectation. I failed to get a scholarship, this wasn’t thing I imagine, this wasn’t in my plan, this will ruin my future but it won’t. Honestly it broke my heart the day I knew that I couldn’t go for my study in early 2018 as I planned. This is the biggest moment of self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. I tried to accept that it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t because I am in-capable to receive that scholarship, it because it wasn’t my time, and everything happened for a reason. If I keep point out my failure in 2017, I will stuck in one place and probably I will spoil my precious times for the rest of the months. So I decided to move on and see the Brightside. One door closed, another will always open. I keep moving on and try to attempt my luck in other scholarships, I know it requires more time and patience, but I refuse to give up.

Talking about the Brightside, I looked back to the days I spent this year. One failure cannot replace thousands of precious moment I have created with a lot of amazing people I met and I spent time with in the rest of the year. I wrote this as the way I show my gratefulness despite my disappointment to one thing. It makes me feel that I am way luckier than I thought. At the beginning of this year, I spent my one full month to join an IELTS course and long story short I managed to get a good score for IELTS and got my very first LoA from my dream university in Holland. The most important is how I met my new friends from the class with similar motivation to study abroad, they keep my boost up. i will explain the rest in points form according to timeline (LOL such a lazy writer).

· ~ I met a new friend from Korea trough my bestie, she asked me to join her and her Korean friend sightseeing around North Bandung area, it was such a good day and always exciting to be a tour guide and make ‘em in love with my neighborhood

· ~ I had a gathering with fellow 2016 World Congress committees, it was marking that our whole event and cooperation as team has officially finished. I was the oldest in the team I guess, but dedicate myself to the utmost for my organization is never a disappointment, I love it. The fact that it was my last contribution in IAAS, I believe my younger brothers and sisters can do better to take care our beloved IAAS Unpad

· ~ I applied for one scholarship to Japan which held by one well-known Japanese company in Indonesia. Out of my expectation, lucky I got selected as one of 12 top applicants and had to thru psycho-test and interview in Jakarta for two days, although I didn’t make it for next stage at least I got new friends. Psst…free accommodation and extra fee for applicants. Alhamdulillah

· ~ It was a splendid day, there was a mini-reunion with my junior high school friends and TEACHERS. I am grateful to be a part of my JHS cause the “ukhuwah” is still well maintain until today, the fact that the teachers whom you left after almost 10 years still remember you and treasure you as one of their best student is so priceless. My best teachers ever.

· ~ My favorite person is never forget to remind me how important our family are, he always try to convince me that I should spend more time with them while I can, we will never know what future brings for us, as long as we can, we are available, do the simplest act for the sake for our family won’t hurt, in fact it is so much precious. I believe that, and I apply that as best as I could. I asked my cousins to watch a movie in cinema, i didn’t miss the family gathering especially on our big day like Eid where there I initiatively asked them to take a group picture that we missed last year, bought a bouquet of flower for my mom on mother’s day, and other simple quality time with them although it’s only for a lunch outside

· ~ This year on May when I turned to 23 years old, there wasn’t a big celebration. My birthday is never a time I anticipate to be honest because often times it just passed like other normal day. But I am so grateful that my close friends did their best effort to made my birthday special, I always love the moment when my friends, juniors, family, send me a birthday greeting and wishes me with all the best hopes. It shows how much people care and love me very much, and I am beyond happy for that

· ~ Another exciting moments in this year that I got to witness my friends graduation even one of my friends had to do the defend seminar while she was 8 months pregnant (what a super woman), be there and cheering them on their special moments is always give me another joy that they way to be happy is not only because of my own success, but for what people around me have achieved also. Again, I am grateful to witness their struggle to pass the tough college years because I know how hard it was when I was in their position, some of my friends still walking on their way for a graduation, they are not late once again, they walk on their timeline. Another “hikmah” that I failed my scholarship that I don’t busy with my own thing, instead I can help people around me more as best as I can to finish their research

· ~ Chili Padi Academy will always be a memorable event for me, the 2016 experience to be one of the facilitators came again to me this year out of my expectation, in 2017 I managed to join the team again although for “together gather” event only in Malaysia. I got to meet again my fellas from Singapore and Malaysia, Weihan and Xin Run my fav SG couple and Amalina who was about to get married when I met her I August. To be surrounded by inspiring and well-motivated people is always give me a positive energy and I am thankful that the whole team trusted me to involve in the project again. And right now we are looking forward for CPA 3 in 2018

· ~ My Taiwanese friends were coming to Bandung for a vacation, Robert contacted me few months in advance just to make sure whether I could take them for sightseeing and I said yes. It was a well-spend 3 days with them, I am happy to introduce them to a new culture, delicacy, and a splendid nature of my home town. We had a great time together, big thanks to my lovely bestie and my sister who accompany us and made the trip much more memorable. The more the merrier

· ~ On early September I receive an honor to deliver a simple sharing and presentation to over than 100 JHS students upon an invitation from my JHS teacher on their camping night, as an alumni although I am not too confident towards my sharing material but I tried as best as I could to motivate them to do better than me in the future, and I am proud how my juniors so much more improve each year compare to my batch. There is a saying that “no matter how far we go, never forget where we came from” and my junior high school is the biggest milestone that gave me much more strength to move forward to the place where I am right now

· ~ I completed my first level of Korean class, I didn’t really have intention to join this course at first but my bestie asked me to join this with her and it was quite worthwhile. Never stop to learn new thing, and from this experience I manage to improve my Korean language in a proper learning. Thanks to my Korean teacher Ms. Han and my other fellow classmates who made my Saturday in 2017 always meaningful + extra hangout after the class LOL

· ~ 2017 is the year where I received a lot of wedding invitations from my friends more than last year. Stepping into adulthood, wedding is one of top agenda to attend followed by a child-birth. It means a lot of extra effort to put make up and formal outfit for a wedding and quite expenditure to buy a present for my friend’s new-born baby. It is always exciting that I can be a part of their happy moment in their life, the fact that the wedding can be a mini-reunion with my JHS, high school ,or college friends . On top of that, I can learn the A to Z wedding, marriage, to parenthood preparation from friends who face this stage first, so I can be more prepare for my moments in near future hopefully :D

· ~ Ever since I start my effort to apply for master scholarship abroad, a lot of people around me gradually notice what I’m doing start from family, friends, junior, to my lectures and teachers. I am thankful that they always support me and deliver the humble prayer for me so that my wish can come true. Because of this also, a lot of my friends or even my juniors personally contact me to share the steps to apply the scholarship, dude…I feel like an information bureau lol, but I am happy to do that because sharing is caring, seeing a lot more people around me have the same motivation give me strength that “oh yeah…we can do this together” although in fact that I’m still struggling as well

· ~ Guys, this point will be more serious and a lil bit thrilling, believe it or not it happened to me. First thing first, be careful when you wrote a yearly resolutions. It becomes your du’a and Allah will direct you according to your hopes. So here is the reveal, I wrote several points as my 2017 resolutions and Alhamdulillah most of the points are granted and meet my expectation, but my main wish to get a scholarship was not a part of it. It turns out that I didn’t write one specific scholarship grant that I wanted to receive, I wrote more than one as options and DANG I failed one of the scholarships I wrote in the options, and it means I might get a chance in other scholarship right? And it just because the other scholarship application open by the end of 2017, doesn’t make me “fail” my wish literally in 2017 right? When I re-read my resolutions it gave me goose-bumps, I can’t blame Allah for not granting my wish it is because Allah has done right to lead my path according what I wish and what I wrote on resolution. I just didn’t realize that. And one more thing I skipped is that I had a resolution to do a volunteering this year, and Masha Allah if I got the scholarship this year I might too busy preparing stuff for departure and forget this chance. It means Allah doesn’t want me to miss the opportunity for doing a good deed in this volunteering. So I looked up in a volunteer platform online and I saw one volunteering chance in Bandung by Indonesia Association of Disability Women, I thought this is a brand new thing for me, I never in touch with the world outside agriculture and environment but this might be a good chance for me to involve in social activity. I plunged in and I am in love with this new world, although it is not related with my major at all but hey to do a good thing is only require a willingness and spirit I thought. I chose a role in publication as I consider this is the field I am familiar with since college, but most importantly I got to meet new friends with their different conditions, like deaf, blind, mute, or those with mental-difability. Being around them give me a huge reflection to myself, how lucky I am blessed with this perfect physical condition and health, I have nothing to whine about, I don’t deserve to complain about my limit, my new friends give me a valuable life lesson that I never had in class. Other volunteering I did was from my favorite NGO called Indonesia Diet Plastic Bag Movement, It was a short work term as I had to survey house to house in small area in Bandung and educate every household about the impact of plastic usage and encourage them to use reusable bag on daily basis. Those experiences gave me motivation to continue my deed as long as I can, it’s never too late to start

So….that’s all pretty much wrap up my not-so-pleasant-but-meaningful 2017, this post can’t compile all the memories I made in every single day, but these are just the representative that always can remind me of so many grateful things whenever I feel down later. My concrete plan for next year I think I will still continue my work as project research assistant with my lecture, continue my volunteer work, and probably a part time in English course as a tutor (well I don’t know, I know this is random but I always want to try this), I will spend more time with my beloved people, and I will still going on with my master study scholarship, hopefully in 2018 my biggest wish to study abroad will come true. And oh…..one more thing, much more delightful love life : I hope to see you soon Bear :)

The year of 2017 as a year of self-reflection, self-acceptance, a good lesson to face adulthood to become a better human being. This post will be closed with one reminder verse of Quran : “Are they, then, not aware that they are being tested year-in, year-out? And yet, they do not repent and nor do they learn a lesson (from it)”. - (Quran 9:126)

Have a very joyful and wonderful year ahead people.

Tanjungsari, 31st December 2017

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learningrendezvous · 6 years

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Acting & Directing

KAREN BLACK ON ACTING

Karen Black, the Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner shares 40 years worth of insights into the craft of acting. This in-depth interview covers everything from perfecting regional accents to finding a characters inner needs, all from one of the most respected performers of her generation. Black gave the world an array of unforgettable screen characters and worked with such world class directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Bob Rafelson, Jack Clayton and John Schlesinger. Her many memorable feature films include Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider, Nashville, The Great Gatsby, Family Plot, The Day of the Locust, Portnoys Complaint, Airport 75 and Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Also includes a bonus feature with Film critic Ben Mankiewicz as they reflect on Blacks noteworthy career, her legacy and her contribution to a profoundly significant era in American cinema.

DVD (Closed Captioned) / 2014 / 75 minutes

EXPRESSIVE ACTOR - EXPRESSIVE ACTION

The study of acting should begin with physical action - a specialized, structured, flexible and adaptable physical action that is enlisted in the direct service of the expression of thought and feeling. I call this integrated physical action an expressive action).-Michael Lugering. A group of actors work through a series of carefully structured exercises and improvisations that unlock the physical, raw materials that make human expression possible. Whether the actor is expressing love, loss, rage or joy, unlocking these universal will provide the building blocks for captivating and dynamic acting.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 70 minutes

EXPRESSIVE ACTOR - IMPROVISATION

A group of actors demonstrate a variety of improvisatory techniques and exercises designed to expand the actors imagination and expressive power. Rooted in impulse, spontaneity, and creativity, the improvisations will lead you to new and unfamiliar methods of expression never thought possible and many of which you have never experienced in your personal life. These basic exercises can easily be modified and adapted for on-going growth and development. All the while, your acting repertoire increases and becomes more nuanced and sophisticated.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 70 minutes

EXPRESSIVE ACTOR - THE LUGERING METHOD

Joan Melton, an internationally recognized actor trainer and author, interviews Master Teacher Michael Lugering in a theoretical discussion of recent discoveries in philosophy, somatic psychology, neuroscience and aesthetics that underpin the integrated voice, movement and acting method presented in this series.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 35 minutes

EXPRESSIVE ACTOR - VOICE AND BODY EXERCISES

A group of actors demonstrate a series of voice and body exercises that unite a series of moving, breathing and sounding actions in an integrated full-bodied acting workout. These smart exercises do more than simply build essential skills in alignment, movement, respiration, resonance and range, but simultaneously prepare the actor for the expression of the bodyss richest and most powerful thoughts and feelings. The goal is the development of a flexible and dynamic voice and body that is hard-wired to express thought and feeling.

DVD / 2014 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 70 minutes

HOW HOLLYWOOD DOES IT - FILM HISTORY & TECHNIQUES: THE DIRECTING PROCESS

This program discuss three big jobs in motion picture making; screenwriting, producing and directing. The director is responsible for the overall feel and look of the film and decides on the use all of the other process of movie making - lighting, editing, mise en scene, cinematography and sound which ultimately reflect the directors control and vision. Explore films from major directors of cinema and learn how a script is formatted. Includes the opening scene from the Howard Hawks film His Girl Friday, Stanley Donen, the 1951 musical Royal Wedding, Vincente Minnelli, comedy film Fathers Little Dividend, Frank Capra, 1941 film, Meet John Doe, John Huston, 1953 film Beat The Devil and Michael Gordons 1950 film, Cyrano De Bergerac. Hosted by Jeffrey Hill and Mark A. Graves - Jeffrey Hill is an associate professor at Morehead State University, Department of Communication, Media and Leadership Studies. Dr. Mark Graves is an associate professor of English.

DVD / 2013 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 26 minutes

STANISLAVSKY FROM THE OUTSIDE IN REACT & ACT: A BASIC SHIFT OCCURS - SOVIET ACTING MODELS

Soviet Acting Models relates how Stanislavsky began his study of acting by watching the great actors of his day and the change that occurred as Soviet actors observed human behavior and discovered that by defining actions through Movement with Purpose, their acting became quickly doable and specific.

Teaches: Acting Models; Stella Adler in the Stanislavsky Tradition before the Soviets; the Two-Part Model of an Action.

DVD / 2011 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 12 minutes

STANISLAVSKY FROM THE OUTSIDE IN REACT & ACT: A TRADITION OF ACTING

Tells the amazing story of the progression of Stanislavsky acting training in the United States and how some of the major Stanislavsky-influenced acting techniques relate to each other and to Stanislavsky from the Outside In.

Teaches: Stanislavsky studying actors; Moscow Art Theater & the Russian Revolution; Stella Adler; Group Theater & the American Great Depression; Lee Strasberg; Sanford Meisner.

DVD / 2011 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 14 minutes

STANISLAVSKY FROM THE OUTSIDE IN REACT & ACT: REHEARSAL MODELS/QUESTIONS/IN CLASS WITH STELLA ADLER

Rehearsal Models apply the Models on-set and reinforce that what we react to in life is external and not from inside us. The addition of the Truth Model demonstrates how prop use in rehearsal carries over to performance. The Teacup Poodle Model demonstrates how actors, can create an image outside of them for a desired response.

Teaches: What makes a professional "professional"; The writer's, director's & actor's Materials; The difference between feelings & emotions; How feelings are communicated; How Acting Models are applied to acting; Loading; the Teacup Poodle Model; acting advice from Stella Adler.

DVD / 2011 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 17 minutes

STANISLAVSKY FROM THE OUTSIDE IN REACT & ACT: THE FEELINGS MODEL

Another revolutionary shift in technique to help students understand exactly what feelings and emotions are and their specific roles in creating emotions in the audience.

Teaches:What exactly are feelings and emotions? Who feels them? Who are they for?

DVD / 2011 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 12 minutes

STANISLAVSKY FROM THE OUTSIDE IN REACT & ACT: THE FOUR CIRCLES OF ATTENTION MODEL

Essential information for on-camera eyeline.

These Models provide both structure and vocabulary which allow them to be applied to your acting, directing or writing and then effectively shared and repeated. Continue the discovery that our bodies can reflect what our minds are thinking by revealing how we place our attention in different locations including the past, present and future.

Teaches: Attention on your own body; attention on your immediate surroundings; attention outside your immediate surrounding; attention "one with the universe."

DVD / 2011 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 18 minutes

STANISLAVSKY FROM THE OUTSIDE IN REACT & ACT: THE MATERIALS MODEL

Reveals the "materials" that actors, directors and writers use in their professions and the division of labor this allows. A must for working effectively on a set.

Teaches:The writer's material; The director's material; The actor's material.

DVD / 2011 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 12 minutes

STANISLAVSKY FROM THE OUTSIDE IN REACT & ACT: THE THREE-PART MODEL OF AN ACTION

Indispensable for film & television work

This very powerful program describes what makes actions change, what a reaction looks like, when reactions occur and what reactions are used for.

Teaches: Reactions; Adjustments; Influences.

DVD / 2011 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 20 minutes

STANISLAVSKY FROM THE OUTSIDE IN REACT & ACT: THE WEIGHT MODEL

Explains how Psychological Weight is different than your Physical Weight. Vital for applying to character work and for acting in commercials.

Teaches: Light weight; Heavy weight; Equal weight.

DVD / 2011 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 9 minutes

DIRECTOR MEL STUART - WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

An Insight Look at the making of Roald Dahl's original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, featuring Wolper protege Mel Stuart

In this exclusive program, Stuart opens up about the inception and making of Willy Wonka and how he first discovered the book. He discusses how and why the film was put together, details about the writing of the final script, creating principal photography on set and the eventual reception of the film both upon its initial release and in later years. Today, the film has elevated to cult classic status and is a favorite among new generations.

DVD / 2010 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 20 minutes

ACTING ONE, DAY ONE

With Robert Cohen

Best Selling theater textbook author Robert Cohen describes and illustrates his hour basic principles of acting. He employs a simple exercise in which students first recite the American Pledge of Allegiance, the learn to act this text as part of a dramatic situation. These four points ( Goal, Other People, Tactics, Expectations ) are an essential starting point for the study of all acting methods and styles.

DVD / 2007 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 35 minutes

CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP, A: THE ACTOR & DIRECTOR

This program traces a segment of a feature film from the early stages of casting through auditions, screen tests, character development, rehearsal process and the shoot. The focus is on the development of the actor/director relationship through the various stages of production. The dual narration by director and actors provides valuable insights for people working on both sides of the camera.

DVD / 2007 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 37 minutes

MAKING IT IN HOLLYWOOD - THE DIRECTORS: GETTING STARTED IN TINSELTOWN - FROM HOLLYWOODS BEST DIRECTORS

A fascinating compilation of some of Hollywood's most acclaimed directors, based on extensive interviews with the subjects and the stars who have worked with them. This program looks at how each director got started in the business & asks the question - "just what is a director and what do they do?"

DVD / 2006 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 84 minutes

MAKING IT IN HOLLYWOOD - THE DIRECTORS: HOLLYWOOD'S BEST DIRECTORS CHOOSE THEIR BEST MOVIES

In their own words, each Director selects one of their most compelling films and reveals intimate details about their most influential work while reviewing specific clips from each film. It includes how famous scenes were staged and shot, how characters were cast and how the directors first reacted to the scripts that became film classics.

DVD / 2006 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 89 minutes

MAKING IT IN HOLLYWOOD - THE DIRECTORS: SUCCESSFUL TEAMWORK IN FILMMAKING - FROM HOLLYWOOD'S BEST DIRECTORS

This program looks at the art of writing a movie or choosing a script, the care and feeding of actors, how to work successfully with each actor, why your cinematographer is your best friend and a look ahead to the future of the industry.

DVD / 2006 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 47 minutes

BUILDING A CHARACTER

Truthful and realistic character development is the theme of this insightful video. R. Scott Lank, Acting Professor at the University of Evansville, guides a group of students though the process of character development, examining the elements of: character analysis, physical work, vocal work, emotional work, combining all the elements and rehearsal guidelines.

DVD / 2004 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 86 minutes

MOVEMENT FOR THE ACTOR

Learn an exciting process for developing a character!

Dawn Mora and her students present a graded series of movement exercises, from stretching and warm ups through various types of dynamic movement keyed to emotion and memory. By the end of the program students learn to "score a text," interpreting character and dialogue entirely though movement. Ideal for movement teachers, work shop leaders and students.

DVD / 2004 / (Grades 9-Adult) / 20 minutes

ACTING IN FILM

By Michael Caine

Academy Award winning actor Michael Caine, internationally acclaimed for his talented performances in movies for over twentyfive years, shares his personal insights into the art and science of film acting. Mr. Caine gives you a once-in-a-lifetime chance to rob him blind! The man who's hypnotized the camera lenses for a quarter of a century reveals the most closely guarded secrets on script preparation. Working with the director, forming a character, voice, sound, and movement. Pearl by pearl he lays out the Caine wisdom on everything from set politics to set decorum, the film bureaucracy and more!