Uncreative Writing Class Blog Entry

2. Do you agree with the belief that, "If it's not on the Web, it doesn't exist” ? Consider all aspects of life including people, places, history, knowledge, and mundane realities.

I absolutely do not agree with that statement. There are many things that are not on the web. For instance, one cannot find all books on "Google Books." The title of the book may pop up, but it could say there is no preview available and, thus, one must actually get the physical copy of the book if they wish to read it. Secondly, I have a lot of thoughts inside of my head that I could turn into literature. I have not written down all of my thoughts, though, and put them on the web. They are stored in my brain. My friend keeps a diary, as well, that is not in the form of a blog-- I am talking about a hard copy of a diary, the way everyone used to write. Some people also do not have access to the internet-- does this mean that their writing does not exist? Of course not! Some literature may also be buried in the ground somewhere because of an earthquake or otherwise, and has never been found. It still exists, just no one today knows it is there. Very old, out of print books generally do not become uploaded to the internet, either. It is either because it has outdated information or it has just been forgotten about. There are seemingly infinite possibilities of literature that is not online!

Uncreative Writing

Half way through reading "Winter," a section of Weather, I felt like killing myself. It was all just meaningless to me. I couldn't go on and yet I forced myself to. I skimmed the rest of it and clicked on "Spring." I made my way, slowly and painfully, through the rest of the seasons. I did not enjoy reading Weather, and yet I am oddly happy for its existence. If someone could help explain to me why I feel this way, feel free. I look forward to discussion in class to help me better understand my feelings here.

But reading this made me realize that we can only take in the weather in small doses otherwise it becomes meaningless. Well, it is meaningless once the day has passed as well.

There is a form to Weather. It seems to be a paragraph for each day of the year, in order, but I cannot be sure for there is no date mentioned which seemingly makes it more useless. I found it interesting that each paragraph was generally about the same size. This must mean that newscasters must fit the weather in a certain amount of time, regardless of how much there is to say. The same-size paragraphs did help to keep the piece unified. As Kenneth Goldsmith writes in "Sentences on Conceptual Writing," : "...it is best that the basic unit be deliberately uninteresting so that it may more easily become an intrinsic part of the entire work. Using complex basic forms only disrupts the unity of the whole." He succeeded in having a unified piece, for sure.

The many "uh's" also made the reading more painful. I am not used to that. This is something that is generally only said orally. In writing, we do not have to type "uh" because we have time between words to think and write. Orally presenting, one feels the need to fill in the gaps of silence and I can usually ignore it. I could not while reading.

I also did a little experiment with the work. I searched the work for repetition using the "ctrl F" method because as I read, I felt like I was reading the same words over and over. To my surprise, there was hardly any repetition! Well, there were 70 "sunshine's" in Winter, but "rainy" appears only once, and there are few mentions of "cloudy" and other words that one would expect to hear (or see, in this case). I think I am analyzing this piece of work more than it is supposed to be. Most people don't read it at all. But in this modern era (or post-modern era), I am used to analyzing things way too much. My generation has been trained to be so creative that it ends up not being creative at all. Some people have formulas that they use to create things (In Petty Theft, Britney Spears is mentioned as an example, which I agree with). Kenneth G., as quoted in Anne Henochowicz's article Petty Theft, says, "What passes for creativity in our culture is actually vastly uncreative.Think of the flood of worn-out narratives, passing for originality, be it novels, films or music, and you'll find that what we term creative is nothing more than repetitious formulas, spun over and over." What comes to my mind for recent work that is deemed as "creative" and is not is Twilight. Don't hate me. The truth hurts.

"To work with a plan that is preset is one way of avoiding subjectivity" is another quote from Kenneth G. Part of me wonders what he means by this-- is he saying that avoiding subjectivity is a good thing? Or is he trying to say that controversy and subjectivity are good things because without it, you get a book of stock quotes or a book on last year's weather reports. I think he meant the latter :) Or it is how I would like to interpret it.

Additionally, I know that Soliloquy, mentioned in "Petty Theft," a record of everything Kenneth said during one week is supposed to be uncreative writing, but I think it might be interesting!

Mobile Writing

2. What do you see as a potential future for the development of technologies heading towards? Do you perceive it as heqding more towards texting or perhaps is the use of texting now a side effect of a lack of mobile technology that would allow the user to write complete or more thought-provoking sentences. Why do you agree or disagree. Justify your answer.

The more advanced technology becomes, the easier it becomes to carry it with us. For instance, the telephone used to be attached to the wall. Telephones then evolved so that we could carry them around the house without a cord. And now, we have cell phones that we can carry across the world. I think that the next step(far, far in the future, though) is having a chip inside of our brains that we do not have to hold. Anyone can contact us at anytime (I haven't been watching too many sci-fi movies, I swear). Of course, how soon this will happen, I am not sure. It may get to a point that as soon as a baby is born, the chip will become surgically placed inside his/her brain instead of it being optional. This has many drawbacks in regards to privacy, of course, but then again, in the future it may not be seen as invasion of privacy. After all, people used to think that a telephone inside of their homes was an invasion of privacy but now they don't.

In regards to texting, I think that maybe texting devices will all have a stylus so that it will be faster to write/text. The problem here is what the book, txting the gr8 db8 notes: if someone's handwriting is bad, the device will not input the correct letters/words. The stylus, for people with good handwriting, will aid in longer and more complex sentences and thoughts.

I obviously agree(from what I wrote above) that texting will have to change eventually since it is hard to type long sentences quickly on a cell phone.

txtng the gr8 db8 by David Crystal

Crystal's book was very enjoyable for me to read. I think that it is because I already know a lot about texting; it is something that I do all of the time and it is a more modern invention. I especially liked that he defends a lot of the stereotypes about texting. It feels good to have a defender of something that I like. One of the stereotypes that Crystal defends is that texting is causing linguistic problems in society! The shortening of words and acronyms, or initialisms (pg 41: "reduction of words to their initial letters) are hated by "outsiders" of the texting world.

Crystal explains that the shortening of words and using initialisms is NOT a new phenomenon. In fact, "people have been initializing common phrases for centuries" (pg 43). Crystal goes on to list several examples of old initialisms like SWALK ("sealed with a loving kiss"), ETA ("estimated time of arrival"), and TTFN (ta-ta for now). Thus, the "outsiders" that think texting has caused an obssession with shortening words and initialisms are wrong. Texting has just shed more light onto this culture's obssession with it.

Besides defending the stereotypes of texting, Crystal also answers some common questions. A common question about texting is why people do it-- I knew I could answer this question for myself, but I was not sure about other people. I do it for four reasons: I am shy and feel more comfortable texting people, I often do it out of boredom(page 110 notes that "the aim is escape"), it can be fun, and in case I do not want people to overhear what I am saying, I can discreetly type a message anywhere, anytime! Crystal not only covers my reasons, but he also goes on to explain five more reasons that I found intriguing-- on page 73 of his book, Crystal introduces a concept that he coins "upping the ante." Friends will play a game where the one will text an acronym and the other will try to lengthen the acronym and outdo the friend. It sounds a bit silly, but it gets the creative juices flowing and is really no sillier than some other board games one can buy at K-Mart. It does no harm. Another reason that texting has become popular is economic issues. In some countries, texting is a lot cheaper than making a phone call, especially if it is a long distance phone call. Crystal also explains that when one wants to quickly give information to someone, this can be done easily by texting instead of calling. A text is short and gets to the point-- as Crystal puts it on page 97, "You can send me a text which gets to the point immediately, and I won't feel you have been impolite." On page 94, Crystal writes that "texting quickly emerged as an index of belonging." I can not relate to this one. Lastly, texting is a "welcome alternative to speech" in noisy environments(pg.94).

Additionally, Mizuko Ito is qouted as saying "mobile phones... have also created new disciplines...accompanied by new sets of social expectations and manners." (pg. 29) I agree with this statement. My boyfriend expects my phone to be on me all of the time. If I do not respond to a text message within 5 minutes, I either get a phone call or another message asking if I am alright. Sometimes it can be annoying. However, it does not work like this with all of my friends. What I really like about texting on the cell phone is that the message I send does not require my friend to be sitting at a computer, for instance. People generally have ther phones on them everywhere they go. I can also respond to a message when I am good and ready to respond and the person will respond whenever they are good and ready to. Texting is very convenient and non-confrontational.

Finally, I would like to say that I am glad that Crystal writes that there have never been any real studies suggesting or proving that texting can degenerate the English language and create teenagers unable to write in proper English. One girl's school paper, which supposedly was done completely in a texting style and never actually found (so probably did not exist), was used to make a general statement about all youngters. He also notes, on page 153, that "conclusions [on such degenerative language studies] are distorted by media hype" and "present an unclear picture." I feel that texting can actually make one better at thinking and writing. I, myself, have full philosophical conversations by texting. Even if I did not, I still get a lot of practice writing that I would not get if it were not for the cell phone.

To the Flarf Haters.

While I do not disagree with the flarf-haters, I am hurt by the ones(one blog in particular) who called my questions being ruled by folly. That's basically calling me stupid. It was a clever answer to the question, but extremely disrespectful and you didn't really think about the question by answering it that way. I'm a sensitive person and I don't like someone making fun of the work that I diligently prepared to present to class.

I had to do a presentation about flarf. What was I supposed to do? Bitch about it? I was there to educate the class on it-- on aspects of it that they maybe hadn't thought about (which YOU obviously did not). I knew the case for hating flarf was clear so I felt I had to show the other side and facilitate discussion(we were being graded on being able to facilitate discussion). I personally liked the fact that some people liked it and others didn't. It is what I was hoping for because I am unsure how I feel about it myself. In fact, Sharon Mesmer does NOT make me laugh. I am not a flarf lover. I did not like the fact that I was being called dumb in some blog posts. I think they were pretty good questions that anyone would wonder. If I didn't come up with questions, I would get a bad grade. What were you expecting? "Why is flarf stupid?" Yes, our professor would have liked that one!

Additionally, I was hoping "world poetry" was fairly obvious what it was supposed to mean. Since it wasn't and I admit that I was wrong, you could have asked. But I did clear it up, yes?

Anyways, I wanted to see how people answered our questions and was extremely saddened when I came across the one that basically called me dumb. I did the best I could with a topic that a lot of people love to hate.

Flarf/Spoetry Blog post

People will often fail to accept that flarf and spoetry are forms of poetry. They seem ridiculous, lewd, and not "beautiful" or "sophisticated" like more mainstream poetry. How could anyone, one might wonder, make poetry by exploiting search engines and blogs? This is fraud!

I would argue that, actually, it is not fraud because person A takes different phrases and combines them in a way that makes it unique to person A. I also believe that flarf and spoetry take more creativity to make and is often deeper than regular, "beautiful" poetry. I am currently working on a flarf play to present to class and it is very difficult to weave random phrases together to make a cohesive, well-flowing plot. I do admit that a lot of spoetry and flarf do not necessarily need to be cohesive, but I like the ones that are. The ones that are take something seemingly nonsensical and spreads a message. And the ridiculousness of the poems often make me laugh.

Unfortunately, I do think that flarf and spoetry can go "too far." What I mean by this is that it can be offensive. I do not care if flarf or spoetry have "bad words," because I say bad words all the time, but I am talking about including an event like 9-11 into the poem, like Gary Sullivan explains. The 9-11 references are of course to make fun of the media's portrayal of the awful event, but I am afraid that some people will just not find it funny. I want to know how a person who lost someone he/she cared about would react to the 9-11 references.

On the other hand, a part of me also thinks that the whole point of flarf and spoetry is to talk about what is not being said. No one would dare make fun of anything related to 9-11, but it cannot be ignored. This reminds me of racism-- people are scared to open up and talk about such things, but it benefits society to be talked about.

Anyways, what I also like about flarf and spoetry is that it takes those little annoyances in life (like e-mail spam) and turns it into something useful. It also questions what "poetry" really is. In my mind, poetry is an expression of self. When search engines are "exploited," I think it gathers the world's expressions and puts them together. Flarf and spoetry can apply to more people than a single authored poem. Thus, you know what flarf and spoetry should be changed to? WORLD POETRY!

Blog Prompt 3-16

"Reflect on the relationship of the body to the typewriter, citing work from today's reading in the Wershler-Henry."

The typewriter has a relationship to the body in 5 different ways. I will break them down:

1) The typewriter itself can be the dictator of the amanuensis. In many passages, Wershler-Henry gives examples where the typewriter is seen as possessed. On page 31, Wershler-Henry tells the story of Auster and Messer. Messer goes downstairs to look at Auster's typewriter and Auster says: "God knows what he did down there, but I have never doubted that the typewriter spoke to him. In due course, I believe he has even managed to persuade it to bare its soul." Thus, the human body is just typing what the type-writer wants him/her to type.

2) In the case of a woman, the typewriter can also be part of the woman. A woman could not do her job, apparently, unless she had her typewriter. They came as a packaged deal. On page 79, the caption under the picture says that "...the 'Typewriter' refers to the woman and the machine, separately and as an assemblage."

3) The typewriter also can simply act a medium through which truths flow through the body. It takes one's truths and transforms them into written form. It can also be the medium through which "spirits" tell the body to type. On page 46, for instance: "the invention was... for the purpose of illuminating...epistolary truths"). And Chapter 12's Theodora Bosanquet supposedly types James words even after he was dead.

4) Finally, the typewriter is that which one must position themselves precisely from, and have a precise typing method. It is something which the human must adjust to:

On page 142, a certain typing textbook explains: "There should be approximately 6 to 8 inches of space between the top of the knee and the frame of the typewriter. The front of the body should be from 8 to 10 inches from the base of the machine..." and goes on and on with numbered questions one must ask themself. In this manner, one also "becomes" the machine, but in a more physical sense rather than #2 where it is just society that sees the woman and the typewriter as one in the same.

5) This last relationship is again with the woman and the typewriter. Women and machines was a very different concept a hundred years ago and so it was seen as somewhat taboo, and, thus, created the "Type-Writer Girl."