I’m reading Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and came across this passage that very clearly describes the struggle of making the piece of art you have in mind:

She could see it all so clearly, so commandingly, when she looked: it was when she took her brush in hand that the whole thing changed. It was in that moment’s flight between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. Such she often felt herself—struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to say: “But this is what I see; this is what I see,” and so to clasp some miserable remnant of her vision to her breast, which a thousand forces did their best to pluck from her.

Is this not a very common experience? The passage from conception to work can be quite a breach to cross sometimes. There are times when you don’t really want to do the work, and so that demon of sloth or what have you darkens the passage. There are times when you are all about doing the work, but the picture isn’t clear enough when you grab your construction tools, or you feel like you lack the skills to take on the task you’ve set out to accomplish. Those demons come in many forms, but discipline guides one to their goal; though you might not get to exactly where you had in mind or in the way you originally planned. Still, the key is to go at it, one goal after another and watch yourself grow stronger, as you advance in knowledge and confidence.

As some people have mentioned on the comment site for this video, books are being pirated all the time, whether or not they are on a digital format. Not releasing your book into such a medium will not guarantee protection against piracy.

Alexie’s fears seem to be all over the place, I don’t think any of them require the kinds of alarms it seems he’s sounding. For instance, at one point, he says:

You as a libertarian, you as a small government person, should be absolutely terrified at having a device that has everything you read, everything you listen to, all of your contacts, all of your correspondence, in one easily pirated device.

By all means, don’t keep all of those things on one single device if you are concerned about that device’s security being compromised. Likewise, do not keep things in your house that are of immense value and would utterly devastate you if taken away. There are things like safety deposit boxes. If you don’t want your contacts and your music on the same device, keep one on a phone and the other on CDs or an mp3 player. It seems to me, however, that his concern in that quote is more with hacking than pirating, and it’s disturbing to hear him casually combine the two.

Alexie’s most peculiar argument was this one:

Bezos [founder and CEO of Amazon.com] has actually been quoted as saying he wants to change the way people read.

Why would this be of any concern? I am not sure why Alexie is uncomfortable with people reading differently today than they did at any other point. The way people read constantly changes, as new realities are confronted and people learn more. It is helpful to diversify the way you experience stories, by checking out different media ranging from paper to performance" you name it. Just because alternate ways of reading are coming about doesn’t mean you totally have to conform to them. No, paper books are not going to be banished from the earth. They will be around for as long as people are alive. Bound reading material is way too popular and close to people to be suddenly or gradually done away with. By the way, feel free to write a letter to someone. Just because email is so pervasive doesn’t mean that you can’t write letters anymore. If you care about these mediums, keep them alive. You aren’t the only one who still wants them around, trust me.

As frustrating as that part of the interview was to listen to, Alexie really got me going when he started talking about the music industry. The poor music industry with its still super-rich stars who have adapted quite well to the digital age and who have suffered this supposed 75% - 95% of their music being stolen. Stolen! Listened to on a PC just as if you had slinked into a music store and swiped a copy of the new Black Eyed Peas album yourself! BMI, Sony, Univerisal, and Capital Records, once towering media giants, now skeletons of their former ridiculously opulent selves.

Musicians during the dawn of Napster who demonized file sharing only made themselves look less like artists and more like business people as they lamented all the lost profits as young people very intrigued by their music started listening to them with easier access. Now that a decade or so has past and Metallica, Eminem, and Maynard James Keenan are still quite wealthy people thanks to all the albums and shows they’ve done, they are not as convincing in their arguments of how Napster and Morpheus were just positively bankrupting them. Or how file sharing today cripples them.

But then their arguments changed, or bounced all over the place as Alexie’s does, and they said that they were actually looking out for the little guy, for the up and coming artists who would be financially devastated by potential fans who wanted to listen to them for free before buying them, or maybe just listen to them for free. They were actually looking out for all of us aspiring less advantaged artists.

Personally, I do not need their business advice. I actually want people to have very easy access to what I make and I’d like to have a variety of options of how it might be disseminated. The Internet is a remarkable place for sharing media and we have to keep our eyes open in order to keep this realm free and open to anyone who can click links or type URLs, or even to people who can’t for that matter. Alexie is simply wrong when he says with the open source culture on the Internet, the idea of ownership, of artistic ownership goes away. He may want to actually visit the sites of open source communities, like Creative Commons, and realize that different artists have different concerns regarding what happens to their work in the hands of other people. Some people merely want their name associated with their work, allowing others to change what they make and call it their own as long as they acknowledge the original maker. Some people don’t care if you make money off of what they made, but don’t want you to change their work in anyway. There is quite a list of varieties, all of which can be legally stipulated. The open source community is not about abolishing ownership, but allowing the artist to have more say in how their work is distributed what "ownership" means, if they don’t totally jive with traditional copyright.

As far as digital archiving stripping away human elements, again I see that as ridiculous as saying that email strips away the intimacy of letter writing. You can write emails like you write letters if you want. Or you can write letters instead of emailing. Your correspondence won’t get there as fast with snail mail, but the experience is not gone or abandoned. You need not prevent yourself from writing such a thing. Similarly, if Alexie wants to go door-to-door more to promote his book, then he totally can. He admits in the interview that he does indeed still do so, but fears that other writers can’t.

What on earth prevents other writers from engaging with people face to face more? So you’re on a book tour doing "afternoon matinees", whatever the heck he’s referring to? Well, when the session’s over, dive into a local bookstore, check out the local authors, contact them. Get a hold of college professors and see if they’re interested in what you’re up to. Go to a frickin’ open-mike night, for crying out loud. I do all of these things and I’m getting zilch for what I write. And who will stop me??

Anyway, it always upsets me when people, very intellectual people especially, complain about more information becoming digitized. If these people were actually interested in the proliferation of knowledge, they’d be excited about this phenomenon. Art and business do not mix well at all. The first is concerned with seeking truth and beauty, and the second is concerned with seeking money. Some people are masters at merging these two pursuits, making them appear inseparable from each other. If someone wants combine the two, they are free to do so. If, however, you are primarily concerned with learning more about the world through the humanities, you must realize that this is a pursuit in and of itself. You can add other pursuits to it, by they are hardly necessary aspects of it.

Recently, parts of a Special Review by the CIA Inspector General office became generally available. It is both an illuminating and frustrating read, partly because of the nature of its content and partly because some of its content is redacted. Of what’s available to read, plenty is disturbing and really gets your mind thinking about how we are able to portray ourselves as some sort of beacon of human rights, even though this review concludes that we treated detainees “inhumane[ly]”.

Many people have been talking about this review as of late, Gleen Greenwald for one (who I thank for providing a link), and obviously many others. Many parts strongly stand out. Here are a few notes on the some of those points. (Numbers in parentheses mark page numbers that the information appears on):

• The Special Review comments on an explanation of how EITs would be used by the CIA, which the Agency presented to the OLC on 1 August 2002. The Review includes this snippet of what they sent regarding how waterboarding is conducted:

  … the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench …. The individual’s feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, the air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth. This causes an increase in carbon dioxide level in the individual’s blood. This increase in the carbon dioxide level stimulates increased effort to breathe. This effort plus the cloth produces the perception of "suffocation and incipient panic," i.e., the perception of drowning. The individual does not breathe water into his lungs. During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied from a height of [12 to 24] inches. After this period, the cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe unimpeded for three or four full breaths. The sensation of drowning is immediately relieved by the removal of the cloth. The procedure may then be repeated. The water is usually applied from a canteen cup or small watering can with a spout. … [T]his procedure triggers an automatic physiological sensation of drowning that the individual cannot control even though he may be aware that he is in fact not drowning. [I]t is likely that this procedure would not last more than 20 minutes in any one application.

  This was sent in conjunction with a psychological profile of Abu Zubaydah concluding that the use of EITs would cause no long term mental harm.

  However, in footnote 26, it’s noted how the OMS later admitted that the sophistication of those reviews was exaggerated, regarding the waterboarding. They also admitted that the experience of waterboarding underwent by SERE training program alumni, who were contracted to develop the EITs was in a different ballpark than how it ended up actually being used by the CIA. The OMS also stated that nothing, before its implementation by the Agency, had demonstrated that waterboarding was either efficacious or medically safe (21-22).

• The Review provides an explanation by the Executive Branch to the Senate in 1988 (92) of how the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment relates to US laws already in existence. The understanding expressed was that US constitutional guarantees prohibit ‘cruel, unusual, and inhuman treatment or punishment’ via the ‘Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments’. "Degrading" treatment, on the other hand, ‘would probably not be prohibited by the US Constitution’. However, the Executive Branch recommended that the Senate understand the term ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,’ as used in Article 16 of the Convention, to mean the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States (17).

• A 1 August 2002 OLC legal memorandum, written for the purpose of discovering our nation’s precise prohibitions of torture, focuses on 18 USC 2340 - 2340A. The memorandum notes that certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within Section 2340A’s proscription against torture. "Torture" in this statute is defined as an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering. The memorandum also says that a violation of 2340 requires that the infliction of severe pain be the defendant’s ’precise objective’. The statute defines the threat of imminent death [and/or] severe physical pain or suffering to either a person directly or another person as severe mental pain or suffering. (18-19)

• An undated and unsigned document, drafted substantial[ly] by the OLC, [a]ccording to the OGC, concluded that since Al-Qa’ida members aren’t POWs, the federal War Crimes statute 18 USC 2441 does not apply to them. The document also claims that the Torture Convention permits ‘[cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment] in exigent circumstances’. Also, it claims that the 4^th and 5^th amendments do not apply extraterritorially. It also defends interrogation techniques that are applied ‘with the good faith and belief that [interrogators’] conduct will not cause [severe physical or mental pain or suffering’. (22)

• Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committees were briefed multiple times about the CTC Interrogation Program including the fall of 2002 and early 2003. The OGC, in their Memorandum for the Record, note no objections by the debriefed groups regarding the implementation of the program. (23-24)

• When OIG reviewed tapes of Abu Zubaydah’s waterboarding experience, they saw how the Agency used much longer and continuous applications of water than used in SERE training and as described in the DoJ opinion. One of the psychologist/interrogators interviewed for the Special Review explained the discrepancy by noting that the Agency’s technique is… ‘for real’ and is more poignant and convincing. (37)

• Sometime between 28 December 2002 and 1 January 2003, a debriefer, untrained and unauthorized as an interrogator, racked (cocked/loaded) a handgun near Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri’s head and revved a power drill while he was shackled and hooded. At another point, the same debriefer, wanting Al-Nashiri to believe he was in a Middle East nation where it was widely believed in Middle East circles that their interrogation can involve sexually abusing detainees’ relatives, threatened that if he did not talk that ‘We could get your mother in here’ and ‘We could get your family in here’. The implied Middle Eastern nation is redacted. (41-43)

• Although an Agency Interrogator reported that another interrogator threatened Khalid Shaykh Muhammad’s children with death, the subsequent report made to him about the incident did not indicate any violation of the law. (43)

• In June 2003, at Asabadad Base in Afghanistan, an Agency independent contractor kicked and beat to death with a metal flashlight an Afghan detainee. (78-79)

• Prior to the CTC Program, according to many interviewed for the Special Review, [t]he Agency lacked adequate linguists or subject matter experts and had very little hard knowledge of what particular Al-Qa’ida leaders--who later became detainees--knew. When a detainee didn’t respond, the assumption was that he was withholding information; consequently, the Headquarters recommended resumption of EITs. (83)

• Measuring the overall effectiveness of EITs is challenging for a number of reasons including: (1) the Agency cannot determine with any certainty the totality of the intelligence the detainee actually possesses: (2) each detainee has different fears of and tolerance for EITs; (3) the application of the same EITs by different interrogators may have different results; and [redacted] (89-90)

• When Congress submitted the Torture Convention for ratification, they submitted a reservation saying that we are bound to Article 16 of the Convention to the extent that the ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ in the Article means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the 5^th, 8^th, and/or 14^th Amendments. The Special Review points out that:

  Although the Torture Convention expressly provides that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, including war or any other public emergency, and no order from a superior officer, justifies torture, no similar provision was included regarding acts of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" [in our reservation]. (92)

• According to a 2003 annual US State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices: the United States is a leader, a partner and a contributor [of respect for human rights]. We have a deep and abiding belief that human rights are universal… their protection worldwide serves a core U.S. national interest (93)

• Bush II, in a statement on United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture said: Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right… Notorious human rights abusers … have sought to shield their abuses from the eyes of the world by staging elaborate deceptions and denying access to international human rights monitors… He calls on all nations to join the US and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment. (93-94)

• One officer told the reviewers Ten years from now we’re going to be sorry we’re doing this… [but] it has to be done. (94)

• Although the current detention and interrogation Program has been subject to DoJ legal review and Administration political approval, it diverges sharply from previous Agency policy and practice, rules that govern interrogations by U.S. military and law enforcement officers, statements of U.S. policy by the Department of State, and public statements by very senior U.S. officials, including the President, as well as the policies expressed by Members of Congress, other Western governments, international organizations, and human rights groups. (101-102)

• Unauthorized, improvised, inhumane, and undocumented detention. and interrogation techniques were used (102)

• The Agency faces potentially serious long-term political and legal challenges as a result of the CTC Detention and Interrogation Program, particularly its use of EITs and the inability of the U.S. Government to decide what it will ultimately do with terrorists detained by the Agency. (105)

These were just a few of the most outstanding, and perhaps outrageous points this report brought to my attention. Some of these findings are old news, but still quite shocking. Once again, like Chomsky said, If it’s illegal when they do it, it’s illegal when we do it.

I might have to take a break from the old Wallace masterpiece. I just reached the chapter where the game Eschaton is explained. In this chapter is a long footnote that forces the reader to jump back into Calculus, particularly in recalling the use of the Mean Value Theorem, or dive into it for the first time if that’s your experience. Though I’ve been meaning to do that very thing for a while, so that I can become a better programmer, I should probably pan out space in my free time for such a thing, which will mean setting down this gigantic project Infinite Jest for the moment.

Much of that story is immediately relevant to one’s own daily life, especially if you live in the US and are bombarded by compelling reasons to self-indulge and create something of a spectacle of yourself. If you’ve ever suffered from any kind of obsession or addiction, you will find your thoughts eerily echoed in this book. You will certainly walk step by step (day by day) with several characters, while others will have issues that are either totally foreign or seem like non-issues. It’s difficult to follow along Madame Psychosis’s experiences and her supposed physical affliction, though her overdoing it with cocaine and then getting high off the materials used to freebase speaks for itself as far as affliction.

Structurally, it flies in the face of more fundamentalist creative writing teachers who preach the importance of sticking your narrator to one POV, whether it be omniscient or limited. Plenty of confusion derives from this and it’s often amusing. Sometimes it can hit you squarely in the face leaving you simply stunned. When language that is clearly derogatory of certain groups is present in this story, there are times when you don’t know if certain sentiments are coming from certain characters or from the narrator. Whenever the narrator reveals their viewpoints and they are not a character, it’s just plain odd. I’m reminded of the jarring approach of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables towards judging characters.

Reading my version’s introduction, written by a man named David Eggers who has written books I’ve heard of, makes me a little reluctant to really put the book down as I found points of his that describe this book (so far) completely and some that don’t accurately or honestly characterize the story. For instance, at one point, he says,

As verbose as it is, and as long as it is, it never wants to punish you for some knowledge you lack, nor does it want to send you to the dictionary every few pages. (Back Bay Books 2006, xii)

Well, it may not want to send you to the dictionary so frequently, but it definitely ends up doing that, unless you came to this book as a walking encyclopedia of illicit and legal drugs commonly abused, or with an intricate knowledge of human anatomy (especially how the brain is designed), or with comprehensive knowledge of all the media video is recorded on. If you don’t come to this book with any of these prerequisites, then expect to visit various resources frequently. In fact, have the Internet on hand as you parse through this one. There are many helpful guides, by the way, with this one as an example. I agree with Eggers when he says it never wants to punish you for some knowledge you lack. There is not pretention in that way in this book so far, but you might not be able to help feeling a little regret for subjects he delves into that you’re not so up on any more, or that you’ve been meaning to dive into but just haven’t yet. There’s plenty of reason to feel guilty about plenty, I suppose.

Some of his descriptions strongly compel me to see this whole thing out:

And yet the time spent in this book, in this world of language, is absolutely rewarded. When you exit these pages after that month of reading, you are a better person. (xiv)

I already feel like I’m learning plenty just reading this huge block of a book. Frequent re-reading is essential if the goal is to actually retain anything. As far as it taking a month to swallow this thing, I whole-heartedly disagree. I’m sure that the readers of Infinite Summer could lap me twice before I finish this book. I am by no means a fast reader.

On a hilarious, yet disappointing note, Eggers finds it necessary to mention Sufjan Stevens:

If we are drawn to Infinite Jest, we’re also drawn to the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Songs, for which Stephin Merrit wrote that many songs, all of them about love, in about two years... Or the work of Sufjan Stevens, who is on a mission to create an album about each state in the union. He’s currently at State No. 2, but if he reaches his goal, it will approach what Wallace did with the book in your hands. (xv)

I was surprised to see that musician mentioned at all in this book, even in the Forward. The man certainly writes beautiful music, and I was hoping to see this 50 State Project come to completion, but it appears that it was abandoned. I may not want to abandon this single project after all...

It’s finallily here!!

Thank you for exhibiting such award winning patience as I practically scramble to become just basically familiar with PHP and MySQL. It’s been a long road (as I’ve faced the world alone), and more awaits ahead. There’s much to talk about, to parse through, and to share, and hopefully we can stick around to see things through. Send me a message if you have any comments. This is still just the beginning of this site. Check out the things I’ve written and don’t be afraid to dive into something like docs.google.com or scribd yourself in order to simply immediately share whatever art may have broken out of you at some point.