M. Allen Cunningham's Blog, page 18

Our Identity Is In Our Arts

In February of last year, Wynton Marsalis appeared on Tavis Smiley's PBS show, and had a number of extremely insightful things to say about the place of the arts in American life -- beginning in the schools particularly. In our era of unprecedented national and moral confusion, civic decay, and fraying cultural life, Marsalis's inspiring exhortations are well worth 23 minutes of one's time.

Some choice excerpts:

Tavis: What is the price that we are paying as a country for the abandonment of music education in our schools?

Marsalis: Well, first, let’s not even say just music education. Let’s say just arts. The fact that we are culturally ignorant. We don’t know what our heritage is. The price that we pay is that we act outside of ourselves almost all the time. We make very bad decisions how we deal with other people in their cultures. We no longer want to be a melting pot, because we don’t understand what is already melted. We’re fighting for territory. We see it in our Congress, we see it in our political systems. We see it in our ways of life, how separated we are. ... But our culture is what we did together. What did Walt Whitman represent? What was his message to us? That is an inheritance. And when we squander that inheritance, we act outside—we don’t know who we are. We don’t know where we are. ... It’s like we have a deep—we’re suffering from an identity crisis. And that identity is in our arts. The fact that we don’t find it chief amongst our agendas to teach our kids who we are as a nation, and the battles we’ve had on this ground, and how they’ve been successfully resolved—we can’t enjoy the fruits of the labor of our ancestors. ... That our kids don’t know that achievement, there’s no way in the world that could be good for them. ... And when your political systems and your economic systems start to fail, it’s only a cultural understanding that allows you to reconstruct them and to get back to who you are. And for some reason it hasn’t dawned on us yet.

And Marsalis has much more to say...

New Stories Called "Deeply Seductive"

My new illustrated, limited-edition story collection, Date of Disappearance, receives the kindness of The Oregonian today.  

The stories are superb, well-balanced and deeply seductive, revealing the lives and experiences of people -- very normal, everyday, you-and-I-type people -- at that bittersweet moment where everything routine, expected, and normal cracks and leaves them in a spot thoroughly unimaginable just moments before. … [Cunningham’s] sentences often leap off the page in their beauty and insight, demanding a lingering rereading, and his characters have a depth and life that is hard to achieve in any genre of writing. … If you're a lover of the fine art of short fiction, Date of Disappearance should be added to your list. If you're not, perhaps this wonderful book would be a good place to start.

See the review here.

"Language That Induces a Change of Heart"

On the Smithsonian website, Ron Rosenbaum offers a lovely little profile of ex-Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham and his new(ish) editorial undertaking, Lapham’s Quarterly, that themed compendium of great writing from across the centuries.

Something of an e-iconoclast myself, I particularly like the way Rosenbaum has framed Lapham’s mission with the Quarterly: as a deliberate counter-assault on our Web-addled, attention-deficit age by means of curated — and timeless — content.

The cavalry charge that Lewis Lapham is now leading could be said to be one against headlessness—against the historically illiterate, heedless hordesmen of the digital revolution ignorant of our intellectual heritage; against the “Internet intellectuals” and hucksters of the purportedly utopian digital future who are decapitating our culture, trading in the ideas of some 3,000 years of civilization for...BuzzFeed.

Here’s a quote from the 77-year-old editorial visionary himself, for anyone needing reminding of what a gift this man continues to be to the intellectual life of America (emphasis mine): 

“I think that the value [of LQ] is in the force of the imagination and the power of expression. I mean ... the hope of social or political change stems from language that induces a change of heart. That’s the power of words and that’s a different power than the power of the Internet. And I’m trying to turn people on to those powers and it’s in language.”

Rosenbuam writes:

Lapham has no love for what web culture is doing. He laments Google for inadvertent censorship in the way search engine optimization indiscrim­inately buries what is of value beneath millions of search results of crap. Even if that was not the purpose, it’s been the result, he avers.      

 “And that aspect of the Internet I think is going to get worse.”

He can sound a bit extreme when he says Facebook embodies “many of the properties of the Holy Inquisition. I mean its data-mining capacities. Or what Torquemada had in mind. I mean, the NKVD and the Gestapo were content aggregators.”

Extreme? Read Rosenbaum’s piece entire, then take a look at Lapham’s Quarterly . Judge for yourself.

Rilke on the Big Screen: There's a Novel for That!

On the Word & Film website, writer Christine Spines' "Poetic Injustice: The 5 Most Fascinating Poet Biopics Never Made" gives us a handful of literary figures to consider for dramatization on the big screen. How surprising -- and gratifying -- to see Rainer Maria Rilke listed there!

I happen to have, ahem, published a novel about the man's life, which I daresay would be a fruitful starting place for any interested filmmakers. Rilke's story, says Spines, has "got the makings for an English Patient-style Oscar sweep," a sentiment I couldn't agree with more. In fact, The English Patient (which I've unabashedly claimed as my favorite film ever) was an inspirational source I constantly returned to during the 6 years spent writing Lost Son.

In describing Rilke's posthumously collected correspondence with Franz Xaver Kappus, Letters to a Young Poet , Spines uses a nice turn of phrase. The letters to Kappus, she says, are about

"surviving the modern world while afflicted by the poetic sensibility." 

The phrase gracefully describes the dilemma at the heart of Rilke's whole life, the very dilemma novelized from first page to last in my book, Lost Son. It also echoes language that I myself have used in describing the novel. Lost Son , I have said, "dramatizes the troubles and triumphs this immensely vulnerable personality encountered as he made his way in the modern world." I've said: "Rilke was an open nerve that the world exerted itself upon."

And here's more, from a page on my author website:

From an early age until his death in Switzerland from Leukemia in 1926, Rilke displayed a fierce and wholehearted commitment to his work as a poet. His entire adult life was characterized by a relentless pursuit of art and the conditions propitious to making it. Indeed, his need to live and breathe art rendered his loyalties to family and friends extremely complex, and kept him perpetually unprotected, homeless, and poor. It gave him, however, his best poetic works — not a few of which are held to be among the greatest in the world today.
Rilke’s writings, in their pungent synthesis of mystery, terror, and praise, ring with powerful interiority and speak to the immense sensitivity of their creator — a man who experienced the world’s pain and beauty in the absence of any self-protective membrane or filter, a man for whom every sensory impression became an unstoppable vibration of the soul.The life behind this unparalleled work tells its own strange and inspiring story of long sacrifice and sudden moments of transcendence. Lost Son depicts Rilke in the drive of his all-consuming art as it carries him back and forth across Western Europe over the course of 25 intensely restless years.

I fully concur about the power of this life story, which is why I dedicated more than half a decade to paying homage to it in a novel. An exploration of Rilke's life in a narrative film, if done with the utmost care, could be wonderful in its own way, and that's why I sent copies of my book to a number of gifted filmmakers. Alas, Wim Wenders never got back to me ... 

NB: Spines is refreshingly accurate in most of her brief description of Rilke and his life, including correctly designating him as Austrian (rather than the all-too-customary erroneous German). It's worth noting, however, that her third sentence refers to Rilke having "crossed paths" with Paul Cezanne, Auguste Rodin, and Sigmund Freud. She's right about the latter two men (in fact, Rodin is a character in Lost Son, as Rilke's friendship with this great sculptor is an integral part of the novel). But the poet never met Paul Cezanne. Rilke did, of course, attend the important 1907 Paris exhibition of the painter's work, visiting the gallery almost daily. Cezanne's profound influence upon Rilke is articulated with breathtaking power in the letters Rilke wrote to his wife Clara Westhoff during the exhibition's run, posthumously collected as Letters on Cezanne .

Prime Passage: Privacy by Garret Keizer

"I wonder how privacy would look in a society in which private life was not so thoroughly defined and so frequently degraded by consumerism. More than forty years ago economist Gary Becker observed that as people acquire an increasing number of consumer goods, the time they spend with each item decreases. The ultimate result, predicted his colleague Staffan Linder, would be a 'leisure' that grew increasingly hectic as people tried to keep up with their multitudinous acquisitions. Linder's scenario hardly sounds conducive to intimate association, reflection, and creativity -- all qualities that privacy is usually credited with protecting. In addition to corrupting leisure by cluttering up private space and time, our consumables frequently include gizmos for peering into the private lives of others, or for publicizing our own in the fond hope that somebody else will find our frenzy more interesting than we do. (p.93) ... 

"Many of the threats to our private lives, it seems to me, come from people who lack much in the way of a private life of their own. Who would take the time to hack into someone else's computer who had a well-tended garden, a circle of loving friends, or a shelf full of good books? We are under siege by the vacuous as much as by the vicious." (p.114)

I highly recommend Keizer's Privacy. Buy it here. 

Man in the Stacks, Part Three

The final installment of my three-part piece as unofficial Writer-in-Residence at Portland's central library is now online at the Oregonian.

... At the Popular Library info desk, a librarian explained to an 80-something man about ebooks and Library2Go. Upstairs in Literature & History, a man at a table read "Sniper: A History of U.S. Marksmen." Deeper in the stacks, a young man encamped on the floor was reading quietly to his girlfriend from a book of poetry. "That's a pretty good one," I heard him say, the sound of a smile in his voice. I remembered the man in the mesh baseball cap. We'd come from different places, the lot of us, but we were all here for the same reasons. We were looking for education, art, civic involvement, and yes, the meaningful wasting of time. With gorgeous grace, the library furnished it all. ...

Read the rest.

(N.B.: An abridgement of the complete series will appear in this Sunday's (10/25) print edition of The Oregonian.)

In the Library, Part Two

My second of three dispatches as unofficial Writer-in-Residence at Portland's Central Library is now live on the Oregonian website.

I headed across the second-floor rotunda to the Business and Science Library and entered the stacks. A patron was crouched before a bottom shelf pulling books, inspecting them, tucking some underarm, replacing others. What happens amid these aisles is something sensorial, something personal because essentially physical. Neither I nor anyone I know will ever search Google for every title, author, scientific discovery, or school of thought contained in the Central Library, but here, because they've been arranged all together at arm's length, we will certainly happen upon some. The library is meticulously organized but breeds chance discoveries. It's public and yet serene. You're never alone in the library, but your privacy is safer than almost anywhere. ...

Read the rest.

Podcast: Libraries & E-Books

This month, I begin my second year working with the Oregon Humanities Council facilitating public conversations about the cultural impact of e-books and the many implications of e-reading. One worrisome facet of e-reading is that of reader vulnerability, i.e., the unchecked power of digital content providers to control or restrict the availability of a text at the push of a button; to block or wholly disable reader access; to censor or otherwise manipulate content at will; and to infringe upon reader privacy in any number of ways.

In the world of print books, it's long been a role of the public library to mitigate reader vulnerability. When it comes to e-reading, too, librarians are working daily at all levels to provide and protect reader access and defend reader rights and privacy. They face unprecedented challenges, however.

Last weekend at the Central Library here in Portland, I attended an outstanding panel presentation on the subject of library access to e-books. Publisher/library relations on this matter have become increasingly heated in the last few weeks, as ALA president Maureen Sullivan's recent open letter to American publishers revealed.

The Central Library panel was a wealth of up-to-the-minute information about the challenges libraries continue to face in a current publishing climate where restricted access is the default. The panel featured Molly Raphael (immediate past president of the ALA), present Multnomah County library director Vailey Oehlke, and librarian and digital access expert Greg Williams. Each spoke at length and with great first-hand knowledge and insight into a troubling state of affairs.

The panel is now available as a podcast on the Multnomah County Library website. It will interest and enlighten anybody concerned about the continuing role of our beloved public libraries in the increasingly centralized "information economy" of a so-called digital age.

"I Have Always Imagined that Paradise Will Be a Kind of Library"

In light of the upcoming vote here in Oregon's Multnomah County on establishing a permanent library district, I'm writing a short series about Portland's Central Library for The Oregonian. I still remember my first visit to the place. It was eight years ago, on a trip from out-of-state. Having come from a municipality where, thanks to citizen apathy, libraries were mostly decrepit facilities from the ancient '60's (with dilapidated collections to match), I was wonder-struck.  

My first dispatch as self-appointed library Writer-in-Residence posted on The Oregonian website this morning. (Two more online installments will follow in the next two weeks, with the whole thing going into the Sunday paper toward the end of the month.)

... Encamped at tables and inquiring at Info, the patrons were as variegated as the library collection itself -- people of all descriptions, ages, ethnicities, and interests. They sauntered in slowly, looking to kill time, or they beelined to the Holds. They pushed a walker or trailed a speedy preschooler. They brought their homework or just idle curiosity. A few carried laptops, many a canvas tote. Among them were Portland natives and arrivistes. Some undoubtedly worked for the city, some in industry, and some slept last night on the street. Some had come for leisure. Others were here to search online job listings via a library terminal. Still others were learning English or cramming for their GEDs. There were 30-50 in the room, but only when someone sneezed did I realize how quiet it was. ...

Read the rest.

Excerpt: The Silent Generations

(From the forthcoming novel* by M. Allen Cunningham)

HANNIBAL & ST. JOSEPH RAILROAD COMPANYSalvage, MO
Friend Alma,
If it happens that you did reply to my last letter you could not know to address me in Missouri of all places. I must be a fool for I left Appanoose Co. intending travel West but by some blunder consented to go South instead. As they needed a man at this office and as I am the more easily hoodwinked than others I am down here at Salvage. My position here is called Expensing Clerk for I sell tickets, send messages, expense bills. I am really an ordinary operator besides.            The Hannibal & St. Jo you may notice is something less than my ideal employer. But this was to be just a meantime arrangement. I do not know yet exactly how long they shall need me, it is day by day, but that it is not permanent is consoling. The managers know I am bound West. I won’t let them forget it in fact for I ache to go.            To illustrate what an awful heathendom I am in I will give you the happenings of one night. A gentleman by the name J.S. Shanks was in town. Much in Salvage spirit Mr. Shanks washed a late evening away in drink and then, starting home along the RR, was run down by the mail express. This man left his family over to Kansas City some days before and never telling them where he was bound, and until they read news of his sudden death they’d had no clue to his whereabouts. The papers say he was a postal agent of decent character whose conduct had lately taken a turn for the worse. Good Lord it troubles me to hear of such men. Salvage seems to draw them. One must ask of oneself, Were I a Mr. Shanks would I have the sight to see how lost I’d got? Or does a soul stray blind over some toeline and never notice? Does it not haunt you to think of it Alma, what senseless wanderings can overtake us, or how small an accident can kill a body. Is there not some hand that authors us? Do you not sometimes feel it is so?            And Mr. Shanks’s ignominious end was but one event. Same evening: an elder of the Christian church shot twice at his daughter crippling the girl for life. Same evening: two men at drinking got up a rumpus that spilled from a saloon into one of the main streets here in town. It was all fisticuffs till one was knocked thoughtless. But the winner of this brawl, wanting better bloodshed, ran back inside to fetch an iron poker and none in the crowd made to stop him as he laid in with it on the felled man. That man is not expected to live. Same evening: had three different fires in town.            If I had not written this letter I would hardly believe its reports. This is my dwelling place at the start of my journey. Does it hang an ill star above my going away, you think? I try to believe not. But that I blundered coming here is certain. Can the Wild West be wilder than this? I do wonder at times now why I am going. Why I left, I mean. But then I remember Perpetua and my life there and all is clear again.            I’m afraid this shapes up to be another letter with “Disagreeable” writ large all over it. And what temerity from one whose correspondence you may have declined to welcome by now (in your last letter I mean, which I have not rec’d).            I might as well say it. One wants to speak rightly to a soul like you. Some moments I think this must be one reason I saw fit to leave — in order to talk to you in letters as I likely wouldn’t in person. Has the Authoring Hand made this so? Maybe so, in which case I cannot judge the Hand ill as I’ve been tempted to. I do want to be clear and well in my letters so as to provide you reason to await instead of dread them. Would that this imperfect science of word, comma, and period had something pure and singing in it like the Electrical Energy of the telegraph wires. I think if the wire signal were itself the message not just the means, or if we mortals needed nothing but currents to link up each to each and be understood, we would likely become more perfect creatures and this world a kinder place. After the natural murderers had all murdered each other that is.            I will tell you (though you’ll think me a fool) that this is my second try at this letter today. Quitting work for the evening I went around to the rear of the Depot house to sit upon a freight truck and pencil my thoughts to you. My hotel I’ve discovered is much too noisy and disorders my brain (I do not sleep at all here despite exhaustion but that is a different affair). A wind had come up, it was roaring along the station platform. Just as I finished a page my paper was snatched away. It flew so quick I didn’t bother to scramble after it. I just watched it flap West along the tracks and I suppose it is to St. Jo by now if somebody in a passing train didn’t reach out a window and catch it. Why do I tell you this besides to make you smile at my expense? Because as I watched the letter fly I began to think it was best, maybe meant to be, if you see my meaning. Oh what can anybody do whether writing a letter or trying to speak to another to make oneself understood? Some wind takes our words Alma and flings them. We cannot say how they go or how unscathed our fragile thoughts will be once heard or read. I suppose it must happen that words messages letters bring one soul closer to another and not infrequently either. But to me it’s a mystery.            Anyhow, I now write this sitting up in the stablehouse behind the Depot. It is windy yet and warm though nearly midnight. Knowing how fires like this town I guess I’d better put out my lamp for thought of the straw around me and get back to my hotel. I tell you I almost fear to walk so late through the Salvage MO darkness. As a price for writing to you however that is nothing to pay. If you only knew what a relief it is to me after answering questions at the office all day to sit down in this strange place and think on the goodness of a soul like yours you would excuse the disagreeable illegible and uninteresting parts in this.            Very Respt’            BenjaminI will await reply to this if one is coming before hectoring you with another. Never fear.     

(*"Forthcoming novel" = date & circumstances of publication tbd. Could still be a while ... )