Rodney O. Lain - 1999.10.28
This article was originally published on
MacSimple, a site which no longer exists. It is copyright 1999 by
The Linton Media Company, which also seems to no longer exist. It
is thus reprinted here without permission (which we would gladly
obtain if possible.) Links have been retained when possible, but
many go to the Internet
Wayback Machine.
The fondest memories from my college days consist of the
worldview-challenging debates that often occurred between myself
and that group of acid-tongued hell raisers known as English
majors.
Armed with their latest ideology du jour, they entertained me
with their arguments, many of which vacillated among varying ratios
of emotion and logic - hindsight shows the debates usually had more
of the former than the latter. Every now and then, I participated
in debate myself, often quickly yielding the floor to my peers, due
to a chronic inferiority complex and lack of confidence in my
burgeoning oratorical competence.
One particular argument stands out as an awakening for me, an
awakening that inspires my writing to this very day.
My "combatant" was a classmate named Jerry. We were having a
light argument about the literary canon. The literary canon is the
body of writings that are considered to be the foundational
literature of our civilization. When I say "literature" to you
average, workaday folk, you should think of the famous works that
dwell in the literary canon. When you mention "canon" to
English-major types, they should also evoke in their minds similar
images of writers like Bill Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson and e. e.
cummings, along with famous works like Melville's "Moby Dick,"
Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and Poe's "The Raven."
Anyway, our contention was this: Jerry opined that, in the
future English curriculum, the writings of Stephen King (crowned
prince of the modern-day horror novel) would be in the literary
canon.
To this, I - not quite sober at the time - replied, "[expletive
deleted]."
But Jerry wasn't one to succumb to my rhetorical prowess that
easily. His argument continued: Shakespeare, for example, wasn't
famous for the whole of his lifetime. In truth, writers like
Shakespeare were often viewed as being beneath the civilized man.
The cultured man (remember this was the 16th century, where men
were men, rulers were men, and no one else mattered) just did not
lower himself to mere poetry- and prose writing. (There is even a
literary society that believes Shakespeare was actually a blue
blood named Edward DeVere, who ghost-wrote all works attributed to
the man from Stratford-on-Avon.). Shakespeare toiled as a
little-known playwright, according to Jerry. No one imagined that
his work would garner even a smidgen of recognition. But today, The
Bards plays are read, performed and enjoyed everywhere.
Jerry extrapolated this argument to include the likes of Stephen
King.
What does Jerry's argument have to do with the Mac and with Mac
Simple, you ask?
Well, I believe we Mac web columnists are like Shakespeare - and
Stephen King, if Jerry is to believed. We could very well be
embarking on an enterprise that will be seen retrospectively as a
cyber-canon classic in the annals of web journalism[0].
What we are doing has no parallel - well, except for the
Linux/OpenSource web effort. Surely there is no parallel in the PC
industry to what you get from the Mac-related press [1]. I listen
to and read several PC journals, and I agree with the e-mail that I
received from Mac user Dave Murray: all the PC journalists write
about are bug fixes, crash recovery and their livid disdain of
Windows and Microsoft. There isn't much personality in their
writing, which cuts us above the rest. PC journalistic writing, as
a result, is usually lifeless, dull writing. Maybe beige can be
used not only as a description of the PC, but also to describe the
PC press.
We, however, aspire to better stuff. We want you to enjoy what
we write, as well as to be educated and entertained. We want to do
more than to wax poetically. We want to do more than write
warm-fuzzy fluff. We want to make you think. We want you to realize
that the Mac is more than a computer. Its more than a lifestyle.
The Macintosh is a movement.
Do you really think the PC web has a "journalistic movement" to
equal what is happening on websites like ours? I liken what we are
doing to a literary explosion - a renaissance, if you will. And if
you doubt that we are creating literature on the Mac web, go and
read the Del Millers [2], the John Martellaro's [3], and the others
who consistently put out damn good writing.
I mention Del and John for three reasons:
- They really are good writers.
- Their writing is the type that makes me say: "I've gotta get
back to the drawing board and hone my craft!"
- I predict their writings will be instant classics in this
medium. They are the vanguard of a new art form.
Point #3 is the main reason why I'm writing this column today.
I'm here to announce, believe it or not, that we are creating
classics here - of a sort. I should explain what I mean by
"classic," because I am using a nonstandard definition of the
term.
I have many literary role models. One is Dr. Henry Louis Gates,
Jr. A MacArthur "genius" scholar who now serves as head of
Harvard's African-American Studies, Dr. Gates edited the Microsoft
Encarta Africana [4]. Several years ago, he made a profound
statement about what makes a classic. He says that truly classical
writings evoke "that special, exhilarating feeling that the reader
gets when the author names things that the reader has felt very
deeply but could not articulate - the sort of passages that young
scholars write out, verbatim, in their private commonplace books.
It is this splendid capacity to name the previously unarticulated
in human experience that, among other things, defines a
classic."
Amen, my brother.
Many writers on the Mac web articulate things that Mac
aficionados feel about the Mac, about Apple Computer, about
computing today, about the interaction between man and machine.
Many of these thoughts are thoughts that many Mac users have
neither the words nor the venue to articulate. That's where
MacSimple comes in. To create these "Gatesian" classical writings.
Again, that is the type of writing to which we MacSimple writers
aspire - that to which people can relate. And it is a commendable
and reachable goal. You may think it pride and arrogance for me to
call our work classical, but your criticism doesn't bother me in
the least. I'm in good company:
Shakespeare had to put up with the same stuff
Fini.
Notes, links and references....
[0] Roger Born seems to agree with me. Go to his web site "Forum
for Critical Thinking," which lists some of what he considers the
best writing on the Internet... BTW, I did not ask him to link me
on that site :-)
[1] I must give due credit to Kim Komando, the self-styled
"Digital Goddess" of the airwaves, with her one-person industry of
computer advice (all-PC, of course). Never one to be self-effacing,
Kim says she is a PC guru and says she "looks good doing it." Check
her out at http://www.komando.com
[2] Del writes for several sites, but his most frequent stuff
can be found at MacOpinion, under the "Difference Engine" flag at
http://www.macopinion.com/columns/engine
[3] John Martellaro also writes at MacOpinion, at http://www.macopinion.com/columns/utopia
[4] You can take a virtual tour of Encarta Africana at http://www.microsoft.com/encarta/africana/tour1.htm
