Walter Benjamin on readers and writers

It is a truth universally acknowledged, sort of, that we are all writers now. Walter Benjamin’s observations suggest that we were all writers “then,” too:

For centuries the situation in literature was such that a small number of writers faced many thousands of times that number of readers. Then, towards the end of the last century, there came a change. As the press grew in volume, making ever-increasing numbers of new political, religious, scientific, professional and local organs available to its readership, larger and larger sections of that readership (gradually, at first) turned into writers. It began with the daily newspapers opening their ‘correspondence columns’ to such people, and it has now reached a point where few Europeans involved in the labour process could fail, basically, to find some opportunity or other to publish an experience at work, a complaint, a piece of reporting or something similar. The distinction between writer and readership is thus in the process of losing its fundamental character. That distinction is becoming a functional one, assuming a different form from one case to the next. The reader is constantly ready to become a writer.

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936), in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, trans. A.J. Underwood (London: Penguin, 2008), 22–23.

“The reader is constantly ready to become a writer”: as this post attests. Benjamin here, as at so many other points in this essay, is eerily relevant to our time. What he of course could not foresee was that publication itself would become the work of the everyday citizen online.

“Net yes”

Elaine and I have been volunteering at a soup kitchen this summer, serving hot lunches and making up takeaway sacks. Thus we have become acquainted with hairnets — one of us directly.

The figure to the left appears in Magic Marker on the kitchen’s box of hairnets (“Lightweight Nylon,” “144 / Ct.”) beneath a handwritten explanation, also in Magic Marker:

If your hair is shoulder length you must wear a net.

I like the way this illustration softens what might otherwise be mistaken for the voice of impersonal authority. Seeing this smiling, vaguely Mesopotamian figure has made me smile several times this summer.

What is it like to work at a soup kitchen? Tremendously and unpredictably rewarding — like all volunteer work, I’d say.

Ukulele Beatles Fun!

Yes, you too can learn the uke chords for Beatles songs, at Ukulele Beatles Fun! (“Self-improvement for free.”)

No “Revolution 9” though — I must search on.

[This post is dedicated to my favorite ukulelist and favorite banjoist.]

“Editor’s Lament”

The news of prisoners plagiarizing poems prompted Geo-B to comment via a poem of his own. I’ve added it to my previous post, but this poem should have a room of its own:

Editor’s Lament

Whose words these are I think I know
He’s not from cell block seven though
I heard it might be Bobby Frost
Who’s doing time up on death row.

We’re publishing a prison mag
With poems and stories in the bag
It’s “Prose and Cons,” so aptly named
Yet this seems pilfered as a gag.

I’ve read it someplace else I think
But I have plenty time to do
And miles to go before I fink
And miles to go before I fink.

Thanks, George!

Blogging rule of thumb

You need to post more than once a week to have any hope of attracting readers to your blog. Daily postings are even better.

Tom Parker, Rules of Thumb: A Life Manual (New York: Workman Publishing, 2008), 224.

Further reading
Rulesofthumb.org
Rule of thumb (Wikipedia)

[Yes, this post is very meta.]

Joyce Brabner, writing, recognition

Joyce Brabner is a writer of comics. She occasionally collaborates with her husband Harvey Pekar, most notably in Our Cancer Year, with art by Frank Stack (New York: Four Wall Eight Windows, 1994). In a 1997 interview, Brabner comments on writing and recognition:

We’ve been on tour and the further away we are from Cleveland, the bigger the audience is, more or less. In Minneapolis we met more than a hundred people. In Oberlin, Ohio, maybe forty-five. At Bookseller’s in Shaker Square, which is next to Cleveland Heights, where we live: twenty. By the time we get up to our own door and inide the house, even we’ve forgotten that we’re writers.

Harvey Pekar: Conversations, ed. Michael G. Rhode ((Jackson: University Press of Misssissippi, 2008), 77.

Prisoners plagiarized poems

News from the UK:

The prisoners’ newspaper Inside Time has introduced strict checks on its poetry page because some contributors had copied out well-known poems and submitted them under their own names. . . .

The newspaper, which is published by a charity and distributed to jails across Britain, has warned its readers that each entry will now be vetted in a bid to flush out the cheats.

“We now check every poem selected before going to print,” the newspaper’s editors said in a warning printed in this month’s edition.

Among the items copied, in whole or in part: James Brown’s “King Heroin” and Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Prison poets caught in plagiarism bid (Telegraph)

Update: Geo-B offers a poem about plagiarized poems (it’s also in the comments):

Editor’s Lament

Whose words these are I think I know
He’s not from cell block seven though
I heard it might be Bobby Frost
Who’s doing time up on death row.

We’re publishing a prison mag
With poems and stories in the bag
It’s “Prose and Cons,” so aptly named
Yet this seems pilfered as a gag.

I’ve read it someplace else I think
But I have plenty time to do
And miles to go before I fink
And miles to go before I fink.

Mad Men yourself

You too can do the bidding of our retro overlords by turning yourself into a Mad Men person.

This image is a compromise: the beard color’s a tad optimistic, but hairwise, things look better than they do here.

Other Mad Men posts
Frank O'Hara and Mad Men
Frank O'Hara and Mad Men again
Mad Men and Frank O'Hara (not again)
Poetry and difficulty
Violet candy and Mad Men

[I didn’t say much better.]

Update: Elaine is now a Mad Woman.

Julie & Julia

Elaine and I went to see Julie & Julia today. It’s a wonderful film, full of cooking (really?), enthusiasm, friendship, high spirits, laughter, love, perseverance, and a few tears. It’s a surprisingly sexy movie, with Julia and Paul Child (Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci) and Julie and Eric Powell (Amy Adams and Chris Messina) sharing meals at their respective tables and falling (not graphically) into their respective beds. A few random thoughts:

Meryl Streep as Julia Child is fantastic. Nina and Tim Zagat, who knew Child, agree: “We knew Julia over the years and Streep captured her in every nuance — so much so that from now on, people are likely to remember Streep playing Julia as the real Julia.” Yipes!

As David Frauenfelder has pointed out, Amy Adams seems to be channeling Meg Ryan in this film. The computer-screen closeups with voiceovers (as Powell writes blog posts) recall You’ve Got Mail. Nora Ephron of course wrote and directed both films.

A great bit of dialogue about blogging that I wrote down in the dark: “It’s like being in AA. It gives you something you have to do every day, one day at a time.” Yes, it’s funny because it’s true.

A prediction: sales of Le Creuset cookware are gonna boom. In our kitchen we have a red French oven and equally red pan. They’re going on eight months old. Best cookware ever. And for anyone doing a Google search for brand of cookware used in julia child movie, that’s it, Le Creuset.

One more thought: I’ve read through a dozen or so posts from Julie Powell’s blog The Julie/Julia Project, and I’m not impressed. Chatty, slapdash, too LiveJournal for me. For instance:

We followed the strength of our convictions and went with the Chinese food, then took it back to the apartment and ate it on the floor in front of the TV while drinking vodka tonics and watching the first three episodes of Buffy on DVD.

Uh, no, thanks. I’m a good audience for Nora Ephron’s movie, not for Julie Powell’s blog (or book). Three cheers for Nora Ephron.

A related post
Cabbage soup (A “veganed” version of a Julia Child recipe)

[I’ve corrected the movie’s title, which has an ampersand, not and.]

“Lady Aberlin’s Muumuu”

Singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton:

I always picture her in this one particular blue dress with flowers on it, I have no idea if it’s a muumuu. But she’s pretty and has a pretty voice and she’s so nice to little Daniel Striped Tiger. I’m getting all flushed just thinking about it.

Here’s a lovely tribute in song to Betty Aberlin of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, “Lady Aberlin’s Muumuu.” Click, read, listen, and keep scrolling down for a comment from Lady Aberlin herself.

A related post
Lady Elaine’s can