Rewritten Reality

…and so regular posts will resume tomorrow.  Until then, I leave you with my current favorite search string for this site: 

beowolf grendel hot mother jolie

When a search string sounds like a spam comment, you know you're on to something. 

I'm in the midst of grading final exams, and so don't have time for a long post today–but I couldn't resist mentioning something about this:

That's right.  It's the first reality show to involve choirs singing off against each other.  And each choir is assembled by a different celebrity–Nick Lachey, Patti LaBelle, Kelly Rowland, Blake Shelton, and…uh…Michael Bolton.

Who says the networks don't understand real music?

Sigh.

Regular readers of this site (or even the new ones who are quick on the uptake…meaning all of you, of course! ) will I think have picked up two things about my personality by now:

1.  I don't suffer fools gladly.  (I do suffer because of them, though.  I suffer even more when I'm one of them, which happens more than I like to admit.)

2.  I'm a bit of a contrarian, or at least a skeptic, when it comes to "conventional wisdom."

Both of these characteristics stem from my sense that we tend to, well, settle for things more than we should.  Vaccinate children for everything which we neither had nor needed to concern ourselves with twenty years ago (including chicken pox…vaccinating against chicken pox?!?)?  Sure…everyone says it's a good idea.  Accept widespread civil rights abuses to protect against imminent (so we're told) terrorist attack?  I guess…everyone agrees that some sacrifice in personal liberty is a necessity.  Believe that the contestants on American Idol are the best singers in America?  Well…if they won the vote fair and square…

Yes, there is safety in numbers, and comfort in feeling that you're not on your own.  When it comes down to it, in fact, most of us would much rather walk with the marchers than against them–and there's often a good reason for doing so.  Despite my serious qualms about the Amazon review system (and Harriet Klausner, patron saint of the "amateur" reviewer), I must admit that there is a benefit to it when dealing with significant numbers.  One person telling me that x book is terrible and I should avoid it isn't particularly helpful; fifty people telling me the same thing, some with evidence to support their claims, is more likely to give me pause–not because I'm a thoroughgoing democrat (although I suppose I might be ), but because the simple law of averages suggests that of those fifty people, a few of them are likely to have some similar tastes to my own.  Or to put it another way, they can't all be smoking crack, or at least not the same kind (and if they are, they might be on to something).  The bottom line is that it's reasonable to assume that there is something off about the book, film or theater production in question if everyone who read or saw that particular thing said similar things about what was off about it.  Sometimes, then, broad consensus is worth taking into consideration.   

The problem, of course, is that broad consensus is notoriously fickle and inaccurate–so that millions of people can think Sanjay is a good singer, while others who saw the Emperor's lack of clothes a long time ago think their fellow AI watchers really are smoking crack…which they are, by the way, if you saw some of his performances *shudder*.  (This fear of fellow citizens' crack smoking habits also applies to politics, but not in this post.  )  I thought of all of this while reading a book jacket the other day that promised "a frightening new vision of a dystopic future."  Now I would hope that a dystopic future is "frightening"–that's kind of the point–but what gets me is the "new" part.

How is this new?

The idea of dystopia was first conceived, at least as a separate term, by John Stuart Mill (who kicks lots of ass, by the way…one of the few philosophers where you don't have to pull out the "he was a man of his time" excuse to defend some of his ideas (you listening, Rousseau?)) in 1868.  A vision of a world gone horribly wrong would have been new in, say, 1869.  I'll give you a few decades grace period, though; if you want to count H.G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895), go ahead.  But basically, by the time we hit the 20th century the idea of a post-apocalyptic, near future dystopia is well established.  And you can rack up the names from there, in books and films: Brave New World.  1984.  Fahrenheit 451.  Planet of the Apes (you blew it all up!).  Mad Max.  Brazil (I don't care that it's directed by a Monty Python cast member, it's still goddamn depressing).  The Matrix.  V For Vendetta (advertised as an "uncompromising vision of the future"–I guess a compromising vision would be one where we weren't all soulless automatons ruled by faceless bureaucrats).  And of course, I Am Legend (now in its fourth incarnation; where else could you get Will Smith acting the same role as Charlton Heston and Vincent Price did?).  And the list goes on and on.  I'm sure this is indicative of our culture's disassociation with itself, and reflects our worries about our increasingly soulless society.  I'm sure that it serves as a warning to all those who have ignored the collapse of our civilization's basic morality.

But when it comes down to it, I just find the whole goddamn thing as boring as hell.

First of all, the dystopic visions are founded on the exact same speculations as the utopic ones, with the same flimsy evidence and the same rampant leaping to conclusions.  And while I will gladly accept that the near-future dystopia tales can have startling resonances with our current society (it's not that hard to imagine the government restricting civil liberties when it, well, already does that), I think being drawn to those resonances says more about our complaint reflex than it does about a greater claim to truth.  Think about it for a moment: life is often terrible.  Awful.  There are times when it seems hard to go on.  And yet for the vast majority of people, life is often also positive, exciting, fun–hell, sometimes even fun.  Now certainly there are a subsection of people who deal with worse things more of the time than the rest of us–but no larger, I suspect, than the subsection of people who deal with better things more of the time than the rest of us.  In other words, most of us get through basically okay, highs and lows in roughly equal measure.  Yet visions of utopia are dismissed as Candyland fantasies while visions of dystopia are called "brave" and "uncompromising."  Second, the "we're all going to die tomorrow" stuff has been done…a lot.  And if nothing else, it would be nice to, perhaps, try something new for a change (which ought to be a goal of all speculative fiction writers)–like imagining a world where destruction isn't the inevitable conclusion.

But maybe we like being depressed, you say.

Well, no; you could argue we just like being realistic.  But my point here is that the vision of a future wracked by death, disease, and universal despair is just as unrealistic as the vision of a future wracked by joy, happiness and cinnamon rolls (which is maybe the greatest possible future I could imagine), and so I'm starting to wish for some critical balance here.  My own work is hardly all sunshine and light, but I'd like to think there's at least the possibility of hope within it…and without that hope, I think I'd rather curl up and cry than waste time writing about how terrible everything is.  So for a little while, I think I'm going to bypass the section of the bookstore or video shop dedicated to the uncompromising visions of the future and look for works willing to compromise just a little on the possibility of hope.

Sort of a cinnamonrollia, if you will.  I could dig that kind of vision.        

As someone new to the "art" of blogging, I still have a lot to learn.  For instance: how to properly encourage discussion on or off site.  I posted a link to yesterday's post about the job market column from the Chronicle of Higher Education on the Chronicle's online message board.  Seemed logical: my post was about a Chronicle article; perhaps people reading the Chronicle might be interested in seeing it.  So I titled the post "The Job Market Horror Story" and posted this, verbatim:

I enjoyed this column, but wondered a little if it isn't indicative of a larger issue in higher education relating to what we tell graduate students about the job search and why.  The full article is on my site, http://www.rewrittenreality.com; feedback there or here would be welcome.

     Real Writer

Whoops. 

Apparently my writing was utterly confusing, because I soon got this gem in response:

wow… you enjoyed an article that you wrote.

You're SUCH a REAL writer!

Besides taking offense at my nickname, which he/she had apparently viewed as arrogant (and not related to the website, from which this name obviously comes), the poster had evidently thought I was referring to enjoying my post–not the article to which the post refers.  Given that this was the Discuss Chronicle Articles forum I would have thought that distinction to be obvious, but I was clearly wrong in that assumption.  I quickly posted a clarification (with a comment about the tone of the reply seeming inappropriate while I was at it), but the damage was already done.  I got things like this:

A failure in clarity is usually grounds for snarkasm around here.

And this:

I think he plagiarized the forum.  Without attribution.

And this:

So it is a piss-poor plagiarism as well?

And my favorite:

MY NAME IS REALWRITE AND I AM A REALWRITER AND I HAVE A BLOG PLEASE COME VISIT MY BLOG YOU WILL LIKE IT BECAUSE I AM A REALWRITER.

Yes, I had gone from an well-meaning attempt to get a discussion going and encourage people to check out my post on this site to a Nigerian E-mail scam, all in less than eight hours.  For the academic world, that's actually blazing speed.  So I changed my name to "A Writer" (and on reflection have changed it here as well), asked that the thread be deleted, and won't come within a mile of the place again.  

But the whole unpleasant experience was useful, because I've learned two very important lessons:

1.  Academics quickly become defensive (or "snarky," which in the real world means "acting like a jerk") when they feel their territory is being threatened.  I already knew this to be the case in the real world; I hadn't translated it to the online universe.  Online, academics quickly become defensive when "the new guy" comes into their forum and starts posting without asking the higher-ups politely.  My fault for not making the connection sooner; next time I'll follow the "chain of command." 

2.  People really, really, really hate anything that refers to any other site besides the one they're on.  Really.  Apparently the spam problem has become so widespread that anyone posting on a message board, forum or comment section with a suggestion to visit another site is automatically the online equivalent of a used car salesman and needs to be slapped down, and hard.  I'm kind of troubled that some people can't seem to make distinctions between legitimate comments and ones which are obviously just trolling (civility and mutual respect seem to be in awfully short supply over there if this overreaction is any indication), but it's good to know the lay of the land nonetheless.

So I've learned my lesson.  Readers, tread carefully: here there be dragons, and "snarky" ones at that.

What I love about the above picture is that I didn't randomly discover it while surfing the Internet.  No, I actually typed in the words "Academic Job Search Convention Picture" into Google Image Search and this popped up, from no less a source than Johns Hopkins University (I don't screw around with no Podunk State Tech Community College, dog).  What is the hidden message behind the image?  Is this the view prospective job candidates wish to see, looking through the window to a larger world (complete with guard towers, I guess)?  Or is it what they are forced to see, locked as they are inside their squalid cells, hunched over their laptop screens with their rapidly cooling chais from Starbucks nearby as they pound out their definitive responses to the subjective unconscious, on the attack against the slings and arrows of that dinosaur Harold Bloom, excitedly reporting that there are in fact five diary entries from Charlotte Bronte's maid (a sadly underrepresented writer) and not, as was previously argued in the PMLA, four?

One can only ponder the picture's deeper meanings.  Either way, the fact that this is the impression about the academic job search with which JHU wants to leave you, or at least their graduate students, is I think pretty telling.  Why is all this on my mind?  Because I just got done reading another of the Chronicle of Higher Education's first person columns jucily entitled "The Job-Market Horror Story."  Of course I wanted to read it; I've been on the job market before, and who doesn't love a horror story (when it doesn't refer specifically to you)?  It starts promisingly enough; Otis Nixon (it's apparently a pseudonym, but I hope also a subtle reference to one of the weirder looking baseball players ever) is a newly minted Ph.D. in history searching for his first tenure track job at the American Historical Association's annual convention (much the same, I imagine, as the Modern Language Association's convention with which I'm more familiar).  He arrives at the interview room, goes up tentatively to the undergraduate-run check-in desk, sees the Interviewer (yes, he capitalizes the term) dressed in a hideous green sweater with another candidate, waits much longer than he needs to (the anticipation is building!), finally goes back to check on the Green Man only to discover (ahh, the guy with the axe is right behind that water fountain, you fool, turn around, I can't look!)…that he's left.  He finds him, though, and it turns out the Interviewer messed up the date, and they have their interview anyway, even though the guy doesn't get to an on-campus follow-up.  And that's pretty much it.

Er…

Well, that's not all of it; he also says this "experience has changed the way I view the hiring process," and that job seekers aren't allowed "to assert their individuality," and that he hopes to find out what the truth of the job search process is and what it isn't.  And that's it.  Really.  No discussions of how he went to the Interviewer's room only to find that the Interviewer was actually his father and in bed with his current girlfriend, also a candidate for a history job at the same school, or that the Interviewer turned out to be a informant for the mob who gave poor Otis a package just before the hit was in, or…well, anything really horrible.  Nope.  Just a guy wearing a really terrible neon green sweater with lousy appointment organizational skills.  That's the horror.

Jeez, where's the freaking serial killer in the cabin on the lake when you need him?

The truth is that Otis's story–not the substance of it, but the fact that he thought it was a story at all–is symptomatic of a much larger problem in higher education: what advanced graduate students are told, and not told, to expect from their job searches.  What they're told, as even Otis points out, is that interviews are cold, impersonal, and mean-spirited affairs (forget about getting a chai from these people!), that the job market is a hideous mess, that the process is absolutely arbitrary and whimsical, and that there are thousands, tens of thousands of people just like them whose sheer numbers will overwhelm and forever cover the unique characteristics of the lovable Otises of the world.  In other words, be afraid; be very, very afraid.  But there are two huge problems with this approach:

1.  What they have been told is mostly a lie.  Academic interviews are not necessarily cold and impersonal, or at least no more so than any other kind of interview.  Sometimes, in fact, they can be good experiences.  But if they aren't good experiences, and if your referring to how terrible a sweater your Interviewer is wearing isn't the reason they aren't good, that in itself is a valuable source of information: stay away from the place.  You're interviewing them as much as the reverse, and if they're not coming across well, that's a red flag to keep in mind.  And the oft-repeated claims that there are "too many Ph.D.s for the jobs available" are bald-faced, scurrilous, and just flat-out hideous lies.  Graduate programs are not producing too many Ph.D.s; the problem is that college administrations have realized that going for adjuncts over the full-time, tenure track positions is a "smart" financial investment, since you don't have to give adjuncts offices, benefits, money, or really any attention at all (so much more could be said about this, but I'll save it for another day).  This distinction matters because it means you, the advanced graduate student, are part of an unusual breed; there aren't many of "you" running around relative to the general population.  Your having gotten an advanced degree of any kind (hell, getting a degree period) is a significant accomplishment, and you have something significant to contribute.  Understanding that fact, and walking into an interview understanding it, makes it much more likely that you'll come across as confident and positive rather than desperate and bitter.  In other words, don't let the bastards get you down.  

2.  What they have not been told is that institutions are looking not just for impressive academic resumes, but impressive academic people.  People on hiring committees want someone they can imagine themselves sitting across the table from, even eating lunch with, five years from now.  I was hired by my institution because I had the right set of credentials and the right kind of research interests and teaching talent, sure…but almost everyone else in the pile of applicants from which I was chosen had the same or better characteristics.  But unlike them, my chairman told me, I seemed "real"; I played in a rock band, I read and wrote fiction, I actually liked (and could talk) sports.  I was, in other words, a real person.  What Otis decries as a lack of "individuality" in the job process is precisely the opposite of what I encountered, where I had to express who I was to let them know the person they were hiring. 

Now this "being yourself" mantra has limits; if you have terrible teaching skills, or would rather be caught dead than found in a library doing research, no amount of talking Astros-Red Sox trades is going to help you (well, maybe, if the Astros had someone real to trade…but I digress).  But then why would you be looking for a job in this field in the first place?  I'm in the process of transitioning to a full-time writer, but while getting there I love the job I'm in too.  I also love my family, and my friends, and relaxing and having a good time.  In other words I am, like all of you, real.  That reality is something which needs to come across in the job search, both for your sake and for others.

"Keeping it real" isn't always going to mesh with your given Interviewer, which is why it's a good thing that there are actually a decent number of jobs out there, and a number of alternatives to the academic profession in the meantime.  In the long run, though, what graduate programs have to do a much better job of is showing Otis and everyone else that fear and desperation are not the only watchwords in getting a job, and that they too have valuable things to offer.  They need to give them safety nets (postdocs, even for humanities graduate students; good words put in at other departments; legitimate alternative options if the academic ones don't pan out).  Most of all, they need to stop throwing Otis into the equivalent of a stone cell and teasing him/her with visions of the city on the hill outside the window.  It's time to stop spreading the horror stories and start spreading the truth.

And perhaps the truth will set Otis free to watch real horror stories.

Just a short post today to note a piece of sad yet oddly inspiring news:  Terry Pratchett, fantasy writer (he's most famous for his work on the Discworld series) and super-satirist, announced on his website yesterday that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of "early onset Alzheimer's."  That news, which would be devastating for anyone, seems particularly awful coming from one of the wittiest writers in the English language (I'm not exaggerating.  This is a guy who wrote "Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be," and that's just for starters.); the thought of Pratchett losing the ability to create his strangely uplifting work is a deeply sobering one, particularly because his work is so, well, non-sober. 

That's the sad part.  What makes this simultaneously inspiring is the way Pratchett finishes his message:  "I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as 'I am not dead'.  I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else.  For me, this maybe further off than you think – it's too soon to tell. I know it's a very human thing to say 'Is there anything I can do', but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry."  This is exactly the kind of thing that makes Pratchett's books so good; they present ideas with a deep sense of humor, irony, and skepticism about the human condition, yet never come across as cynical or bitter.  In fact, Pratchett may be the only author I know who can spend an entire book poking fun at our ridiculous species and our crazy world, yet somehow leave you feeling that we're really not all that bad and the world isn't all that terrible after all.  In any case, here's hoping that the added attention this announcement brings causes Alzheimer's research to get kicked up a notch, and that Pratchett still has many more years of making us laugh, smile, and most of all think ahead of him.  Or in his own words:

"Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think."  

Amen.

I just administered my first final exam of the semester today, and as I watched my students busily scribble away in their blue books I started thinking about testing.  My exams have short answers (an irony which my students seem not to appreciate, walking out of the session shaking their cramped writing hands and smiling sheepishly) and essays, and I ask questions which require much more than one word answers.  Result?  A fair (I believe and have been told) and challenging (I believe and have been assured in no uncertain terms) exam which helps determine if the students have learned how to think about literature and the specific works we studied more deeply.  For most of my teaching career I've avoided the multiple choice/fill in the blank/true or false type of test like the plague because, well, they usually suck.  A lot.  The vast majority of those exams only assess whether the students have successfully managed to cram the exact knowledge they were told they would need into their caffeinated (and I hope that's all) brains for the two hours of the exam period, after which they will proceed to forget ninety-five percent of it.  Yes, I'm afraid the secret is out: cramming works exceptionally well in the short term and exceptionally poorly in the long term, and these exams ask (practically demand at gunpoint) you to cram like mad to get ready for them.  Good for test scores, great for speedy grading (ScanTron is your friend!), not good for real education.

Of course educators have known for years that there are some serious drawbacks to this model, and they've known something else too: exams themselves are really freaking evil–perhaps necessary evil(s), but evils nonetheless.  Because of all the things we do in our classrooms–presentations, discussions, activities, lectures, interpretive dances (those are the really good classes), the one item which contributes absolutely nothing to the actual educational process is the test.  Doesn't matter how well it's designed, how fair yet tough yet reasonable yet challenging it is, all a test is designed to do is assess progress: is this student getting it?  It generally doesn't even do a great job of determining what exactly the student isn't getting or how to help him or her get it in the future; it just says that whatever you thought you knew about x subject, you didn't.  It's the Check Engine light of the educational process; something's wrong, but who the hell knows what.  Beyond that it's a total waste of time.  Students learn nothing from even the most carefully structured exams (except to avoid them whenever possible), and the angst created by the onrushing specter of a test at any level almost overrides the value of having it as a measuring tool.  Still, students need to get some kind of assessment, however broad and imperfect; teachers and parents need to understand if the students aren't grasping what they need to, and tests are one of the few ways that we can determine that fact.  Just as long as we don't make it the centerpiece of our educational strategy.  Which we wouldn't do, because we trust teachers to, by and large, do what's best for the students, right?

Uh-oh.

Yeah.  You see, the problem is that we've stopped trusting teachers on all levels (probably everywhere to a degree, but certainly in America) because we've begun to sense something is radically wrong with the educational system.  Reading and writing skills are diminishing, American students are falling farther and farther behind in math and science, and we're all losing ground to other nations (I think politicians would all instantly collapse if they couldn't use race-running analogies at least once a day).  A whole host of complex factors have gone into creating this problem: economic disparities among school districts, the increasing influence of the Internet (bad bloggers!  Bad!), less parental involvement (itself owing to a host of complex factors), and so on.  Thus, what we need is a multi-faceted approach which allows for local decision making and a fast, agile national advisory system made up of experienced educators, parents and students (why yes, they might indeed have something valuable to contribute about the education they are currently experiencing!) to make suggestions about further professional development of faculty, greater educational opportunities for students, and addressing the social conditions which impact the educational process.  Right?

No, silly rabbit…what we actually need is more testing.  Because that's the message of the astonishingly cynically named No Child Left Behind policy, President Bush's grand vision of education in the future.  And like all things from the minds of the Bush Administration, the vision is an extremely simple one: obviously, the reason education isn't working in this country is because the educators aren't working hard enough.  The fault, Dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in our…well, you know.  Yep, for too long the professional educators of this country have gotten away with subpar standards and a total lack of accountability (come on, they even get the summer off!), and it's our children (as ever) who have suffered.  But NCLB, which allows the federal government to withhold federal education funding from schools unless teachers are "highly qualified" (which we determine by testing, natch) and students have met certain basic criteria (which basically involves being tested every time they leave the lunchroom), has changed all that, because now, if those hippie slacker teacher types don't do their job, BOOM!  Out goes the funding.  See how you like your summers now, bitches.  And it's worked: according to the Department of Education, over forty states have either held the line or improved in all categories (well, all two of them–reading and math–but what else matters, anyway?)  See what happens when you run the race to win?!?  

Except, unfortunately, that when you look at any measure besides the tests themselves–and NCLB has convincingly proven that if you threaten people with dire consequences if they don't pass tests, people will definitely do better on tests–the picture is far less rosy.  First of all, the obsession with testing (and believe me, there are so many of them now that ScanTron can't turn out those bubble sheets for the multiple choice/fill in the blank/true or false exams fast enough) has reached such a fever pitch in the educational world that all things not specifically relating to testing (i.e., all the real education, as I mentioned above) have been unceremoniously shoved to the sidelines, with predictable results. Arts, social studies, and foreign languages have been drastically cut back in many areas of the country; as principal Kathy Deck says, "It hurts me to give up art, but it hurts me even more to have kids who can't read.  I have to decide where I will get the biggest bang for my buck."

That's the spirit!

Even worse, the brass ring chase this has engendered has meant that the thing many teachers are now spending most of their time on is–surprise!–preparation for the test.  And since, as I said above, testing is a waste of time educationally, it means that students are doing really well on the tests they were taught to prepare for and really poorly on the most important thing of all: how to think critically in conditions not possible to recreate in an exam.  What happens when a student confronts a new item entirely outside his/her realm of experience?  Will he/she, having learned how to think and reason, consider alternatives and determine a solution?  Or will he/she, not facing a test question for which he/she has been prepared for months, be entirely clueless?

I guess I'll leave that not-so-rhetorical question for all of you to answer.

And finally, the low performing students, who will ruin everything for the schools if their scores are included with the rest, are kicked out at the earliest possible legal opportunity, while the gifted and talented kids are, as usual, left to fend for themselves.  Special needs and ESL students are, of course, not really important to begin with.  I guess No Average Student is Left Behind, though…or at least not the ones who aren't interested in subjects besides the reading and math on which they're tested.

Fortunately I haven't had to deal with this nonsense on the college level, where we are still given relative autonomy to do our jobs.  But the mania for assessment has permeated higher education, too; we're being asked to create rubrics, assessment sheets, outcome lists, and so on, all precursors of the "show me the numbers!" model which is the NCLB's stock in trade.  Yes, the NCLB is everywhere, and so it's small wonder that it's hard to find a single educator (not administrator–there's often, though not always, a difference) who actually likes the NCLB, and easy to find many who think it to be the worst piece of legislation they've ever seen.  No doubt this is coming from the lazy teachers, who are upset at having their fat cat lifestyles threatened (30-40k a year'll buy some serious bling!), but since they're actually professional educators, while the NCLB visionaries aren't, it does make you wonder a little bit.  Could it be that in our zeal to slap easy labels on complex problems, blame the system on the people working in it, and lean on charts, graphs, and figures for guidance, we've gone way overboard?  Could we actually be doing much more harm than good to the education of our young people?

I don't know.  Will these questions be on the test?

If you're a writer, or someone with a vague interest in books who spends any time online at all, you've probably heard of Harriet Klausner, Amazon.com's #1 Reviewer.  For those of you who don't know, Ms. Klausner is famous for her, er, review rate; she hit the fifteen thousand reviewed books mark this year (I wrote the number out so the more skeptical of you wouldn't believe I accidentally hit an extra zero.  Suspicious bunch, you people.), and shows no signs of slowing down.  Yesterday she posted reviews for another ten books, and on her top days has reviewed far more than that.  And she reads widely as well: mysteries, romances, horror books, science fiction, young adult, she's got them all covered.  According to TIME, Harriet is "part of a quiet revolution in the way American taste gets made. The influence of newspaper and magazine critics is on the wane. People don't care to be lectured by professionals on what they should read or listen to or see…Online critics have a kind of just-plain-folks authenticity that the professionals just can't match. They're not fancy. They don't have an agenda. They just read for fun, the way you do."  Harriet Klausner Goes To Random House: the heart-warming story of a "citizen reviewer" whose folksy style has won over the jaded regulars of the publishing world. 

Maybe.

But take another look at the prolific HK and you'll find a couple of clouds to this silver lining.  A quick perusal of her reviews indicates that all of her reviews–all of them–are either four or five star affairs.  Apparently every book is good or great, which is a pretty good track record for an industry which has the reputation of producing some schlock on occasion (just scurrilous rumors, no doubt).  Still, you would imagine that one or two authors wouldn't have gotten the "only great books accepted" memo and might, possibly, have written something a little below par.  (I in no way wish to disparage My Beautiful Disaster, of course, which is obviously one of the greater books we've produced as a species.  Jordin Sparks liked it, and it got five stars, for God's sake!)  But it's conceivable that Harriet just has a great eye for otherwise misunderstood talent.  What isn't as easy to explain is how every review reads like something taken directly off the back cover of the book itself, with a couple of vague generalizations thrown in for good measure.  Read the book description and HK's review of the aforementioned MBD and you'll note some stunning similarities.

But wait, wait, wait.  What happened to folksy charm?  She doesn't even get paid for doing this!  And she's a speed reader!  Didn't you read the TIME article?  Are you against quiet revolutions, you industry shill?  All good points.  I love folksy charm, and sign me up for the next peaceful revolt.  But when you learn that she's actually sent advance copies of books "by the truckload" from publishers who are desperate for any kind of exposure for their books, and that she's become widely derided as a "joke" by industry execs, you may start wondering what worth her reviews actually have.  It's certainly not the deathless prose: "Readers along with the two DS will wonder whether Alan has gone over the edge or found a real connection; which premise makes this a deep read."  Now there's a five star sentence.  In fact, there seems to have been a not-so-quiet revolution against poor folksy Harriet, from conspiracy theories that she's actually a fake created by the publishing industry to pump up their books to full-scale attacks on her intelligence and (already shaky) credibility.  There's even a Harriet Klausner Appreciation Society, which is a society but is not appreciative.

But many of my more savvy readers will probably know that the word has been out on Harriet for a while now.  I bring it up again here because over the past few months I've begun to see a disturbing trend, which I call the Harriet Klausner Effect (HKE, patent pending), manifesting itself in more and more places.  The HKE refers to the practice of seeking out, by any means necessary, outside testimonials, reviews, and gestures of approval to validate one's work for an increasingly skeptical public (I told you that you were a suspicious bunch).  The latest example of this phenomenon is the paid blog review craze, where people are, apparently, paid to review other people's blogs.  In fact, there are actually whole sites dedicated to encouraging this phenomenon.  The process is pretty simple: submit your blog to the site, and for a fee (which can run to $300 and more, by the way) one of the site's paid reviewers will post a review of it, either on that site or in some cases on his/her own blog.  The reviewer gets paid, the blog gets exposure, and everyone's happy.

Um–what?!? 

I'm sure I'm late to the party on this, but I think even the most credulous person out there will raise an eyebrow at this model.  Even Google has recognized the problem and started to adjust its search engine criteria to take account of (and more easily reject) sites which rely on this "pay-per-review" model.  Yet rather than either applauding this response or sheepishly admitting we just screwed it all up, a lot of bloggers have instead decided to attack Google and the objectivity argument:  "A blogger's job sometimes goes unappreciated and for granted. Pay Per Post and ReviewME offers models where, at least, they can review products and services they find interesting and give a fair assessment of those products, while being appreciated ($$$) for it."

For the second time: what!?!

In the past, this kind of Conflict of Interest 101 situation would have been justifiably demolished for its utter lack of objectivity.  This is why the famous "industry-funded studies," like those which found no link between smoking and cancer in the 70s, don't get that kind of unquestioned authority from the public anymore.  But thanks to the HKE, "lack of objectivity" has now been removed and replaced with "appreciated."  We're objective, the bloggers say, we are, we swear to God!  The money has absolutely nothing to do with our review.  We would review these sites anyway; now we're just getting "appreciated" for our work.  Uh huh.  Which is why, no doubt, these sites were willing to drop three or four bills just to get you to pay attention to something you would have paid attention to anyway.  I love quiet revolutions, don't you?

Sarcasm aside, the point here is that standards matter, and taking money from a site to review it seriously reduces the credibility of that review, no matter how much you stamp your foot and say it ain't so.  I do theater reviews, and while I'm sure the press people are nice to me when I come to their performances (just as you would be nice to anyone on whom you're trying to make a good impression), that's the extent of their "payment" to me.  My editor and his/her review medium is the one to whom I'm responsible, and thus conflict of interest doesn't enter into it.  It's often impossible to avoid all connections to something you're reviewing, of course; if I say I like WordPress (and I do), I can't avoid the fact that I'm using a WordPress-created site to say it.  But there was no quid pro quo there; I started using WordPress because it was great, and then decided to talk about it.  WordPress didn't send me a check, or a review book copy, or anything else to do the review.  I just liked it and said so.

Such arguments seem to me to be obvious ones, but so pernicious is the HKE that they seem to be getting muddled in people's minds, and I can't for the life of me figure out why.  I want public acceptance as much as anyone, and you better believe that I want my books and music to do well.  I'll even check out Rate My Professors once in a while to see what my students think about how cool I am (and whether I got a hot pepper, and I did, thanks for asking).  But even divines recognize the importance of free will and prayer freely given; forced or solicited reverence doesn't cut it, no matter how pious you claim to be.  Get your name out there, market and promote yourself, talk your work up at every opportunity.  But don't pay for the privilege.  You're better than that.  Even Harriet Klausner says so, and she only gave you four stars.

 "Work in progress" is another example of the English language's ability to play fast and loose with definitions depending on the context involved.  (In fact I sometimes worry that English has a slutty side to it–it'll say yes to almost any meaning you want to impose upon it–but that's a discussion for a different day.)  In sports or business, a "work in progress" refers to something or someone which/who isn't quite measuring up to snuff.  It could get there, but you have a vague sense that it's kind of like the kid who never quite figured out what life was all about…it's always a little disappointing.  "The New York Knicks are a work in progress."  Actually they're really a work in regress, but you get my point.  You don't refer to someone who you think will learn on the job as a "work in progress"…an "up and comer" or a "real go-getter," maybe (what are they going to get?), but not a "work in progress."

In writing, on the other hand, the mythical "work in progress" is the sign of membership in the club.  Writers revere the term "work in progress," so much so that many of us even abbreviate the term using capital letters: WIP.  Some even add what chapter and page is being worked on, so the whole business seems vaguely Biblical:  WIP 3:65.  (And lo, the third chapter was nearly finished; and the author looked upon it, and saw it was good.)  There seems to be a certain comfort in the idea of something constantly being worked on, that we're never really "finished" with anything but are always moving on to the next project.  I'm a busy bee!  I've got so many ideas I don't know how I'll live long enough to write about them all!  What about the book I just finished?  Well, uh, I didn't actually finish that one, but my WORK IN PROGRESS *rumbling effect* is so much better, let me tell you about it…

I bring all of this up because I am closing in on the end of my current WIP (14:214, if you're following along at home) and have started to get excited at the sight of a light at the end of the tunnel (which I hope is not an onrushing train).  But I've also started to consider my next project, which is this really cool…

Wait a minute.  What happened to the book I'm about to finish?  And see, this is the problem with the almighty WIP; it doesn't let me rest on my laurels even for a second.  Hell, it doesn't even let me acknowledge that I've won a laurel.  All that matters is that I move on to the next project, and the next, and the next…until…what?  Well, there is no "what," you say; it's about the journey, not the destination.  But by constantly focusing on the next milestone, we forget about the ones we've already passed, and that's a dangerous condition in which to constantly live.  I suspect that one of the reasons we're so obsessed with having a WIP is that it keeps us from focusing on the completed works (assuming we do complete them, which can be another problem) that haven't been published, or didn't sell well, or are starting to disappear from bookstore shelves, and rather than mourning the loss of something we dearly love (and you're in the wrong profession if you're not deeply attached to the books you write, warts and all) we simply move on to the next big thing. 

Maybe we're the sluts.

Anyway, I guess I want to put in a plug here for writers allowing themselves to enjoy the work they've completed, and not rush on to the next thing within a day or two.  I think it may be worth it to let the accomplishment (and it is one) sink in, to reflect on the process that just happened, and consider ways to get the book out there through the query process–and then give yourself the time to celebrate, with friends and family.  And don't accept the idea that you're a failure if you're not constantly rushing to open the next blank Word document.  Let your friends drive themselves crazy with blowing ever more printer toner and (hopefully recycled) paper.  Relax a bit, and let your "work in progress" shift in your mind to "work is produced."  Now that's a WIP worth having.

Because I'm not a huge television fan (love the sports, Boston Legal and Law and Order are cool, throw in a concert from London or something once in a while and I'm all set) the Writers Guild of America strike hasn't really been on my radar screen, and it appears I'm not alone; most people seem to have barely registered the news, and those who have seem mostly confused by the whole thing.  Ostensibly the strike is about distributing DVD revenues and (most importantly) online content; the writers want a piece of the pie, the studios claim the pie might taste terrible and even if it's good, they might not have enough to go around if the writers take a bigger piece.  (It's not the most inspired analogy I've ever come up with, but I happen to like pie.)  The financial ramifications are real, but it's hard to build a rallying cry around the idea of "we write the online stuff too." If you've got one, let me know; so far the best I've been able to come up with is

What do we want?  Money from YouTube!

When do we want it?  Now!

I don't see Joan Baez tackling that in an impromptu concert anytime soon.  Anyway, the point is that this isn't really a "sexy" strike, for want of a better term; it's not an easy conflict in which to pick a side.  And it probably doesn't help that the writers themselves, being writers, aren't really clear about what the hell they're doing either, or have decided to pass the downtime by making fun of themselves.  Former Simpsons writer Larry Doyle may summarize the prevailing attitude the best: "We are artists. We may not dress all cool like artists, or get chicks like artists, and none of us are starving, quite obviously, but Hollywood screenwriters are certainly artists, perhaps even artistes, and we suffer just the same… We suffer as we slave over our screenplays alone, staring into blank laptops, often blinded by pool glare."  It's funny, sure (I mean we pretty much knew he could write already, right?), but it doesn't exactly conjure up images of a holy fight against a Dickensian owner to improve hideous work conditions.  And if the writers don't take their own strike seriously, why should the rest of us?

But of course, that's the whole problem, you see: from the writers' point of view, the general public doesn't take them (or what they do) seriously enough to begin with.  That might explain why ninety percent of the pictures you'll find from this strike are of celebrities "showing their solidarity" with the writers, not the writers themselves (and by the way, they have to be the happiest looking bunch of people on a picket line I've ever seen).  And with good reason: do you know who the hell writes Boston Legal, or Grey's Anatomy, or Law and Order (without Googling, now, you're not fooling anyone over there!)?  I sure don't.  And since we don't know these people, the studios figure they can squeeze them a bit without worrying about the public relations hit they might otherwise take.  What's worse (from the writers' point of view) is that a combination of reality shows, sporting events, and reruns can go a long way to tiding the American public over, especially during a holiday season when people expect (and want) a lot of classic shows and movies anyway (if the studios ever lost A Charlie Brown Christmas there'd be hell to pay, though), and film scripts are set through early '09.  In other words, there's no public pressure for a resolution to the situation (Schwarzenegger doesn't count, unless he comes in like this).

Just like everyone else, I'm not entirely sure where to go on this one.  I'm a writer, I belong to a union (the AAUP), and I don't trust the large studios, so I guess my tendency would be to side with the WGA…except that I write books, not television scripts or film screenplays, and thus I, like most writers, am a free agent.  It's true that a vast number of film scripts come originally from books (that's why film options are getting picked up on anything that can keep a plot line together for a few pages these days), but very seldom are the original authors hired to write the screenplay.  WGA people tend to do that, and since they tend to make a lot more money then those of us in the "free agent ranks," it's hard to feel devastated about their situation.  You could even make the argument that a strike helps the up and coming author, since (if it were to last long enough) it would force the studios to look farther afield to find their new crop of writing talent.  Would I cross a picket line, even if I weren't in the union in question?  Probably not, but it's a measure of how poorly the WGA has made its case that I'm even a little ambivalent about the whole business.  Where's the inflatable rat when you need it?

Ultimately I think the WGA is right, the studios are wrong, and the creative talent (writers, actors, and directors) ought to get the lion's share of the money from all of the revenue streams, online or otherwise.  I'm always in favor of giving the greatest financial reward to the person making the greatest artistic contribution to a given work.  But so long as the union continues to let its members joke around about what they're doing, or let the Ben Stillers of the world stand in for the Larry Doyles, I can't blame the general public for approaching the whole mess with a collective yawn.  Pool glare blindness just doesn't seem like that pressing a concern, even when it's accompanied with a lot of self-deprecating irony.