Ecstasy of influence

Every once in awhile you read something that makes you think "yeah. Exactly....Why didn't I write that?" This is one of those essays for me. Lethem has so many great points. No human creates in a vacume...I forget who said that, but I heard it somewhere before. I'm afraid it won't appear at the end of this blog on a "works cited" page fitting the enigmatic MLA format to ensure no laws are broken. I'm just saying within the body of this text that I know I didn't make it up.
So what is an original thought? How far back into the history of mankind do we need to go to ensure that the author actually came to the thought from his own musings; that he didn't steal it from some obscure-out-of-print book he has in his secret collection? Will there be DNA testing for art someday? If so, it will certainly be developed in America where we fear the pinching of intellectual "property" with the same vehemence that we used to fear the "Red Menace". I think Lethem gets at the heart of issue by pointing out what we are really afraid of is someone else capitalizing from our work at our expense. It's a valid argument and a legitimate complaint. The problem is where to draw the line. In the early 1970's, George Harrison was successfully sued by.....The Shirels...(?) or some other Motown group for copy write infringement. The argument was that the song "My Sweet Lord" was a copy of "He's so Fine". Harrison tried to argue that in listening to the 2 songs back-to-back, the melodies did sound similar, but he didn't consciously write "My Sweet Lord" with "He's So Fine" drumming through his head. I think that is an important distinction. It didn't, however, win him the case and it probably wouldn't save an OU student's hide from the plagiarism court.
So what is an artist, author, or student to do to protect himself in in the litigious world of modern America? I suspect by making a conscious effort to develop his own style. Even though we all have our influences, they are not all the same influences; so the chances are that if given enough effort, a personal style can come to form out of the soup of influences we have acquired throughout our lifetimes. I'm influenced by George Harrison, but my words don't sound like his, and I'm not a really good musician so I don't think I'll be writing any songs any time soon that would stand accused of ripping off Harrison or The Beatles. For that matter, nothing I ever write will likely be accused of being a rip-off of Jimi Hendrix, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, or J.S. Bach, Gaspar Sanz, or Girolamo Kapsberger for that matter. From the world of literature, I am heavily influenced by Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Allen Poe, among many others, but I don't ever hope to be confused with them. As popular (or not) as some of these artists are and have been throughout history, not everyone who creates art is equally influenced by each one of them. A lot of people liked The Beatles, but how many of those same people also really like Sanz? I suspect most people don't even know who the hell I'm talking about. That's the point. Not everyone likes the same things equally well. So, as long as the thoughts you scribble are the thoughts from your own head, influenced as they may be by the work of others, and not blatantly lifted, you should be alright....I hope.

A question of grammar

The study of grammar is interesting for me as I teach English as a second language. When I did my OU practicum at Hispanic Outreach in Pontiac, I was taken aback by the interest my students displayed in learning grammar. They wanted the rules. What they really wanted was a matrix or chart; "when you are in this situation, write it like this." They approached learning English as if it were a science. I told them that unfortunately it is not as easy as that with English. Fortunately, I was teaching a group of students who were trying to pass the GED and I was furnished with an exam prep textbook to draw my lessons from. This was indeed handy as I had not had an English grammar lesson in more years than some of my students were alive. Like the author of the article, I also remember "conjunction junction" and all the rest. I also remember grammar lessons ending sometime in my early teens. 9th grade, I think. From them on, I've been on my own. As a teacher, I had to re-learn many of the rules for things I have done unconsciously for years. I don't pretend to know much about Spanish grammar, but I have been led to believe it is more straightforward than English. I wouldn't be surprised if that is so. Spelling in Spanish, I am told, is also straightforward. There are no Spanish "spelling B's". Each vowel, I am told, is pronounced in only two ways, the short or relative sound, and the long or “alphabet” sound. No mysterious “ough” nonsense to deal with.

Yes, as we grow and learn we innately discover how to communicate with our fellow English-speaking humans reasonably well. The problem is writing. If most people, even educated "professionals" wrote the way they spoke, it would be laughable. Over the years I would become really offended when I read something at work written by one of my "superiors" that had glaring grammatical and spelling errors. I would wonder how they got to where they were, why they made so much more money than I when they sounded like idiots, and why was I still schlepping...whatever it was I was schlepping at the time earning a peasant’s wage. It wasn't until I went back to school to finish a bachelor degree that I realized you can very easily muddle your way through school, even perhaps achieve an advanced degree in the sciences or business, and still not know how to write an email without sounding like a moron.
I can accept that strict lessons in grammar are probably unpalatable to most American students. Now we have "Grammar in Context" textbooks and the like, which are supposed to teach grammar in "useful" scenarios instead of boring drills. The problem is, they still teach by giving example sentences with fill-in-the-blank exercises. They don't answer the fundamental question of why. As a teacher, I hate not being able to answer that and I refuse to say "it's just they way we say it". I'm not a linguist, nor do I want to be. I don't think breaking language down into its atomic particles is necessary to be able to teach someone how to write. I think the reason we don’t teach grammar anymore is because we don’t know how to. What I mean is that we don’t know what really works to make the ideas stick in the student’s heads. Over the years more and more studies are done, more PhDs are granted, and we seem none the wiser. In the short time I have been teaching ESL, I have learned that how you teach depends on who you are teaching. Mexican speakers of Spanish seem to want the rules and the “dry, boring” grammar. Speakers of Chinese and Korean don’t. They already learned English grammar ad nauseam in primary school. What they need is practical experience creating English, both written and spoken. I haven’t yet taught English to native speakers, but that is my goal. I hope that by taking classes like this, I will be better prepared to teach others how to construct English sentences effectively. Whether I teach grammar directly or try the osmosis approach, remains to be seen.

Write till you drop

There were a few things I could relate to in Dillard's essay "Write till you drop". There was also a lot of meandering that I had to hit the "fast-forward" button over. I love the line about why you never find anything written about that one thing that really gets you, being that it is because it is up to you to write it. Writing as if your life depended on it is a little melodramatic for me-as is the bit about the sensation of writing being like doing barrel rolls and spinning and blind love. etc etc. I also disagree with the assertion that if you are going to write, you should write a big book (novel or non-fiction narrative). I'm a fan of the short story; for many reasons, not the least of which is a short attention span. It is difficult to chew through a long novel, especially when not compelled to for a class, just for the enjoyment of it. Unfortunately, I'm not a fast reader and something always intervenes before I can finish. I also have the not-to-uncommon habit of reading several books at once (this even when not reading for classes). That short attention span problem again. And last, as my favorite author, Ambrose Bierce put it, a novel is just "a short story with padding."
This is partially tongue-in-cheek. There is absolutely nothing wrong with novels or non-fiction narratives. I enjoy them both. I just had to chime-in in defense of the short story. I do, however, think that everyone should write. I'm not saying everyone should attempt at making a profession out of it. I just think when we write, we think harder than when we speak. A Lot harder. We all could use this form of exercise a little more.