Staging a theatrical performance for an audience is asking them to suspend their disbelief for at least an hour and to believe every lie that the actors tell them. In a time before the helpful technology of today, Shakespeare was taking his audience from Denmark to Scotland, tossing them in raging tempests, and bringing them into the lives of well-known monarchs. Arguably, his most dreamlike and ethereal play is A Midsummer Night’s Dream. With a script that weaves between the world of mortals and immortals, it is only natural that the UK’s Old Vic Theater Company would ask the audience to go one step further with them with their use of puppetry.

The collaboration with Tom Morris and Handspring, who achieved critical acclaim for their production of War Horse, was certainly a fruitful one. The puppets range in size and style, exploring with enlarged faces and limbs and for the fairy couple Oberon and Titania and manipulated miniature creatures for their fairy subjects. The props are most successful in their most simplistic forms. Puck, the well-known sprite from the play, is represented as several household objects being manipulated by three actors. Rather than a distraction, as it could be in less practiced hands, the cartoon effect works quite nicely to amplify the humor and playfulness in the script. The most well used objects on the stage were a series of planks of wood which were at times the emphasis of the fairy queen

Titania’s grandeur, at others a moving set, and even musical instruments. Less successful is the use of an actors actual bottom to portray his transformation into an ass. The joke is certainly initially humorous, but the temptation to give into the more juvenile jokes makes it seem as though the company is suggesting that perhaps today’s audience is just not paying close enough attention to understand the humor as it was originally intended.

To remind us that we are just foolish mortals, the company blurs the line between us and them. Members of the production weave through the seats, calling to each other and speaking loudly to the audience, behaving very similarly to the way that the audience would have when Midsummer was first performed, before making their way to the stage to weave between the chorus and the roles. The double casting of the same actors to play the fairy and human royalty, king Theseus and Amazon queen Hippolyta, reminds us that there is no difference between the magic world and ours when love is involved. The shift from mortal to immortal is a seamless one; Theseus and Hyppolyta do not find resolution in their relationship until Oberon and Titania are settled in theirs. And much like Thesues must defeat Hippolytas people in battle to win her hand in marriage, Oberon must trick Titania with magic before she submits to his will and gives him a her beloved Indian boy to take as a charge. Once their reunion is settled, the act trickles down into the mortal world and “all is mended.”

Occasionally, the production gave way to the cheaper jokes, very few references to male anatomy went unexplored and un-prodded, and loud music threatened to drown out the actors voices completely. Rather than end on Pucks comforting sonnet about finding joy rather than offense in the events of the past hour spent at the theater, the final scene was one of chanting music and moving larger than life puppets. The play does not need the excuses and explanations of Pucks speech, but their absence was noticeable as they provide the final word in a dramatic dialogue between reality and fantasy. Depending on your point of view, theater can feel like a beautiful dream or a convincing lie, but this particular production was a lie well worth believing.

-Marcy Braidman

The final three performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston Friday, March 14, and Saturday, March 15. Purchase tickets here. ]]> http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/msndreview/feed/ 0 http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/fall2013/ http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/fall2013/#comments Tue, 29 Oct 2013 18:11:13 +0000 DigitalAmericana http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/?p=1812  

Autumn Readers,

The Fall 2013 issue of Digital Americana is now available for your iPad, iPhone, & in print. We chose this season’s “Local” theme knowing that everyone has their own understanding of what defines [local Americana]. And this is our issue that celebrates these details and acknowledges these differences. Featuring a self-interview by author Alice Lichtenstein, a colorful new spoken word piece, an interview with one of the creators of the award-winning interactive novel, The Silent History, and much more.

Inside, you’ll also find the publication of an amazing original documentary that was created by Logan Jaffe for this issue, which features some local Americana at its best, plenty of yard sale talk, and yard sale people. You can take a look and watch it now, and then learn more about Logan’s experience by reading her nonfiction piece, The Road to Somewhere Else, inside our new Fall issue.

Digital Americana Fall 2013, The Local Issue, includes:

Fiction: Grant Faulkner, John Nizalowski, Robert Boucheron, Thomas Kearnes, C.M. Vitali, & Lynn Bey. Nonfiction: Alice Lichtenstein, Logan Jaffe, & Charlotte Austin. Poetry: Z.M. Wimsatt, Jacob Arnold, Brian T. Robinson, John Brantingham, Emily M. Green, Gerard Sarnat, John Gosslee, Marie Nunalee, Caleb Bouchard, & Robert Rebein (spoken word). Book Reviews: One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson & Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon. Art: Jody Joldersma (cover), Tom Reese (photography), & Logan Jaffe (film & photography).

If the goal of cinema is to present something viewers have not seen before, offer a form of escapism, and, especially today, make audience members feel like their money was well-spent, then Gravity is the best movie in years. That isn’t hyperbole. Alfonso Cuarón’s first film in seven years is a 91-minute thrill ride that beautifully brings the mystery and terror of outer space to life in front of our eyes. It’s a visceral, immersive experience that demonstrates big budget films in the hands of an auteur can offer something that we’ve seen before, astronauts in space, in a way we’ve never seen it. It’s not hyperbolic to say that Gravity is unlike anything you’ve seen before or will see again soon.

Part of Gravity’s brilliance is how simple it is. After a Russian satellite is destroyed, debris wreaks havoc on a mission to install new programming into the Hubble Space Telescope and strands two astronauts; veteran mission commander Ryan Kowalski (George Clooney) and medical engineer Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), 372 miles above the Earth struggling to get home. There is nothing spoilerish in that description, especially if you’ve seen any commercials or trailers for the film. One of the astounding things about Gravity is there is nothing more to film than that, but, at the same time, there is so much more thanks to Cuarón’s skills as a director.

Gravity brings space to life in a way viewers have rarely seen: realistically. There are no advanced spacecraft here, no aliens, and, perhaps most importantly, barely any sound. Viewers have grown accustomed to hearing explosions or propulsions in space with the same sound they’d be heard with on Earth, thanks in part to science fantasies Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly/Serenity, etc. Where those productions present the void above as merely an extension of the sky, Gravity demonstrates that there is nothing further from the truth. When debris from the satellites collides with the shuttle, there is no sound at all, and that adds to the terror. The audience only hears what the astronauts hear, which is mostly dominated by breath, communications, and heartbeats. One the marvels of the film, during moments where Stone and Kowalski are reaching for a handhold on the International Space Station or a Soyuz capsule, is that viewers realize the sound of the heart beating is not on screen, but pounding in their own chest.

The power to capture such moments is in large part the performances of Bullock and Clooney, who both turn in fantastic performances. It’s hard to imagine this film with anyone else in the roles. If it had been other actors, the thinner moments of dialogue would have been problematic, but these two manage to sell their plight.

However, that wouldn’t be possible without Cuarón’s direction. The technical achievements of Gravity are astounding, from the stunning 17-minute single take that opens the film, to use of 3D that actually adds to the experience rather than detracting. It’s here that it must be noted the film should be seen at an IMAX in 3D if possible. The giant screen adds to the film’s immersive elements, whether it be when the 3D gives the distance of the Earth, which takes up so much of the screen, real depth, or when an astronaut, tumbling through the void, appears small and insignificant against a backdrop of stars. Cuarón, who is no stranger to technical achievements, whether in the long single-takes of 2006’s Children of Men (his last film before this one) or re-envisioning the world of Harry Potter in 2004’s Prisoner of Azkaban, which not only set the art direction for the rest of the series but is probably the best of that film series. Here, apart from the sound design, he uses real shots from NASA to accurately depict space above the earth and sticks as close to an accurate depiction of what would actually happen in this scenario as possible. This applies to the communications with Houston (and, in a film that has about six roles, an amazing cameo I hope no one spoils for you) to what has been theorized would happen in an avalanche of space debris above the earth. Real-life astronauts, from Buzz Aldrin to Mike Massimino, have praised the film for its accuracy, while acknowledging that any artistic liberties are necessary to present a thrilling film.

Thankfully Gravity is exactly that. It is the best film released so far this year, and it’s hard to image any set for release in the remaining months will come close to what Cuarón has delivered. Gravity is a must see, especially in IMAX 3D if available. Even if you have to drive a few cities over to see it that way, it’s recommended you do so. You’ll be planning a repeat trip once the credits roll.

-Todd Natti

@toddnatti ]]> http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/gravityreview/feed/ 0 http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/spidermanandtheconsistencyofamericansuperheroes/ http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/spidermanandtheconsistencyofamericansuperheroes/#comments Fri, 04 Oct 2013 19:02:17 +0000 DigitalAmericana http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/?p=1768

I am often annoyed or disturbed when I see people get bent out of shape about cultural shifts, trying to handle the fact that something from their childhood was no longer the same, that trends changed and music, books, movies and interpretations of their childhood heroes changed with them. Personally, I felt, I would be ready for things to change because everything changes. Of course, with these opening sentences, you can hear the “however”; the moment when I have difficulty with something changing. And sure enough, there is a “however,” I was not entirely ready to handle a shift in the characterization of Spider-Man.

This summer, I became more interested in superhero comics after reading independent comics semi-regularly for years. I returned to a diverse medium filled with great visual and verbal storytelling. Our view of superheroes had changed significantly since I read superhero comics as a child in the 90s, which was an admittedly bad time for the genre. Today, “superheroes” have won a semi-respectable position within our larger American cultural pantheon. And, for good reason, the superhero represents a distinctly American take on the hero. But at the same time, because of the way in which the genre functions, we cling rather tightly to consistency at least in who are heroes are. Much like any cultural figure, to see our heroes fall from grace, to see them as something less than scrupulous can be jarring and deeply upsetting.

The world of superhero comics is one populated by long running characters who ultimately act as blank canvases for a variety of situations. They are frame tales where writers and artists throw the character(s) in new and more ingenious scenarios. This is very similar to what people have done for centuries, whether it be King Arthur, Paul Bunyan, Sherlock Holmes, etc. However, the superhero is a uniquely American take on the hero, a costumed do-gooder ultimately upholding the status quo (my definition relies heavily on the research of Robin Rosenberg and Peter Coogan, who recently edited What is a Superhero?, a collection of essays that provides an excellent starting point for anyone curious about the subject). On an individual level, the superhero occupies a certain mythological position for many of us, primarily rooted in our initial encounters with them as children.

Growing up, we see a world lacking in fairness and invest ourselves in fictitious figures possessing extraordinary powers or abilities to play out our fantasies of justice or as a simple escape. We watch them triumph again and again, ultimately confirming, on some level, our belief in justice, our belief that good will always triumph over evil even if only in the tales we tell ourselves. Given this emotional investment, it is not surprising that many get upset when someone fundamentally shakes up the initial formula, or rather the formula in place when we were first introduced to these characters because that formula does actually shift with the time on some level, we just don’t notice or it is so gradual, we hardly recognize when it happens.

As a result of our own expectations, we approach any new stories as ones we imagine to be anchored by a preexisting characterization and structure. You become attached to the character and, much like any relationship; you rely on certain things always staying the same. You wouldn’t want your best friend to wake up one day and have the brain of your worst enemy, would you? We forge connections with these heroes based on our own identification with them or because they represent something we aspire to, they can be a version of us at our best even when they are at their worst. How they find their way out of a struggle can be a sort of strength.

For me, Marvel’s characters always seemed more approachable than their DC counterparts. Spider-Man, the X-Men, The Fantastic Four, these were characters I could more easily relate to. They have always been a mix of pathos, wit, and an abiding code of ethics. These were relatively good people thrown into extraordinary circumstances. The story centered on how to make the best of these new circumstances while still trying to live a happy life and to make a positive contribution. Growing up, Spider-Man was the one that filled my imagination. He was funny, he was heroic and most of all he was nerdy and teased in school like me. If he could make it through the day and still have time to save Manhattan, I could make it through a school day.

When I picked these comics up again twenty years later, the characters were the same, albeit with new experiences and a few always-temporary deaths in play. I expected and found some consistency. However, there was one hero who was very different and of course it was Spider-Man. Now I had to deal with a cultural change in a way I was not ready for.

Upon picking up the thread of recent issues, I quickly learned Peter Parker was not the same, in fact he wasn’t technically even Peter Parker, but Otto Octavius aka, Dr. Octopus. Doctor Octopus had taken over Parker’s body and was going to prove that he could be a much better Spider-Man than Parker. In fact, he was going to prove he was a much better Peter Parker as well. Thus, Spider-Man is no longer a hero but a villain masquerading as one and a complete asshole. The name of the comic had changed as well. Amazing Spider-Man ended with issue 700 and The Superior Spider-Man had taken its place. Daniel Slott, the writer, had fundamentally altered something I had grown up taking comfort in; my own cannon of myths had been changed and I was thrown.

At first, I was, illogically, really angry. Now it was my turn to be someone upset about something from my childhood changing. How could someone do this to Spider-Man? What am I supposed to do with a version of my childhood hero who is actually an initially unlikeable character, egotistical, not funny, and kind of reckless?  I would have no problem with this type of character normally. If anything, we have been conditioned to appreciate these anti-heroes as entertaining ripostes on the genre’s established tropes. But those riffs never really touch the characters they are responding to; those original figures remain relatively static. This change was uncomfortable, Dan Slott, the writer responsible, had upset one of the genre’s static frames. The Peter Parker I grew up with was nowhere to be found. And yet, as I continued to give the comic a chance, I began to see my discomfort as something equally rewarding in itself.

It would be easy to be angry and dismiss the comic outright if not for the fact that these comics were actually quite good. Slott accomplished this not by falling into the 90’s trap of reinventing the genre by making them more gritty or needlessly dark. Instead, he had maintained the original tone even if Spider-Man’s methods were different and he was a total jerk. Slowly, I came around to this change. I realized that Slott was took an enormous change by playing with something so fundamental as the structuring myth of Spider-Man, a pop cultural constant since the early 60s’. I had even begun, uncomfortably, to root for this new version of Parker. Ultimately, in playing with our expectations, in putting the reader in a somewhat uncomfortable position and for continuing this for over a year, Slott was ensuring that mainstream comics could be taken somewhere a little more daring and maybe taken a little more seriously.

Isn’t that what a work should do, take us someplace slightly uncomfortable, play with our expectations just a little? Even in a medium built around familiarity, shouldn’t things be shaken up, not reset so easily? Hoping things stay the same forever only leads you somewhere stale and boring, maybe safe but certainly never interesting. To go in and really mess with a character like Spider-Man and to do it in a way that does not end up being cheap is actually quite an impressive feat.

Slott is working well within the established mythos of Spider-Man, in fact The Superior Spider-Man could be read as a much more grandiose experiment with the logic of its fictional universe. Spider-Man is marked as being always-already down on his luck. For whatever reason, Peter Parker can never really catch a break in any long-term sense because of the fact that he lives a double life. The press reviles spider-Man, his enemies continually come back to haunt him and he is always lying to those close to him about his secret identity. A successful Spider-Man would not be Spider-Man (also this would effectively eliminate the need for future issues but still).

Of course, if you spend your life watching from the sidelines, you end up having plenty of ideas about what someone would do differently in another person’s shoes. This has been fodder for a variety of plots for years, Freaky Friday being the most apparent. So, of course Dr. Octopus decides he can do better, he can out Spider-Man Spider-Man. And, so far, he has. Since taking over, Dr. Octopus has improved the hero’s costume, built robots to bolster his firepower and done the most normally villainous thing of all, hired a private army to help him out. Parker/Octopus even went so far as to blackmail J. Jonah Jameson, former editor of the Daily Bugle and Spider-Man’s most famous detractor, into showing unilateral public support for the hero as Mayor of New York. It would seem that the reason Parker has done such a so-so job in his life as Spider-Man would be because he is somewhat incompetent. Maybe a super villain is actually better, through the application of more dramatic tactics, at being a super hero.

In a larger scale, isn’t this the sort response to heroes we continue to have and one we have been wrestling with for years? Wouldn’t we want our heroes to take literal action in stopping crime and making the world a safer place? In the real world, isn’t our response to most news stories about crime or even pop culture instances of law enforcement in line with this need to seek justice by any means necessary. Law and Order has effectively demonized constitutional protections for years, we know the only way to get always guilty suspects is to punish them mercilessly. We seek universal force where possible, we want to be armed and ready to take down bad guys in a Manichean battle between good and evil and we hope for problems to be fixed decisively and effectively. However, and effective and final justice like this rarely becomes a positive good in the long run. It often leads to outright fascism.

This is where Slott’s Spider-Man becomes a very timely hero and a very American investigation of one the biggest questions in the early years of the 21^st century. The battle between freedom and security, between military might and diplomacy, between decisive action and careful contemplation. Two Spider-Mans represent two possible sides of the argument. Peter Parker (the real one) as the studied and nuanced approach to solving problems infinitely more complex than they first seem and Parker/Octopus as decisive action before anything else. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy also investigates this issue at length, but grew increasingly conservative as it played out, ending as an epic argument for the sovereignty of Batman as the law and this being the key to his success. Slott’s Spider-Man actually seems more nuanced and a more careful analysis (Octopus is above all an egotistical super villain). One hopes that Parker/Octopus can learn why his methods won’t work or that it blows up in his face.

I learned that it wasn’t so easy to handle my established myths changing with the times. I was upset because, on some level, I invested a lot in Peter Parker. I held a certain security that things can be black and white and that our heroes will always be the same. To see this shift with the times is to see the times actually shift. And as superhero comics continue to position themselves as a distinctly American mythos, with new generations working over these heroes the same way oral story tellers would make up tales of folk heroes in the past, we have to accept that even our heroes change with the time, that people can do something radically different with them and that it can be rewarding and entertaining. Slott’s Superior Spider-Man is a timely investigation of many issues around us. The question of justice, security and freedom is one that the genre of Superhero comics is uniquely positioned to answer. It can explore the ramifications of a world where justice can be taken into individual hands with superhuman force, where one person can do what armies can and more. Spider-Man’s recent change is an ecstatic and entertaining look at these central concerns.

Still, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hopeful that they announce the return of the real Peter Parker at the upcoming New York Comic Convention in mid-October. I do need some stability in my adulthood.

-Michael Torsell ]]> http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/spidermanandtheconsistencyofamericansuperheroes/feed/ 0 http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/501wordwritingcontest/ http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/501wordwritingcontest/#comments Thu, 03 Oct 2013 20:59:34 +0000 DigitalAmericana http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/?p=1763 The second round of Digital American‘s 501 Word Writing Contest is underway, following the success of last year’s competition. The contest offers a unique challenge for creative writers to work within a very specific constraint of delivering a story in less than five hundred and one words, which on its own is a great piece of practice for the page.

The top five finalists will be published in an upcoming issue of Digital Americana, but the winner gets a very unique prize. Not only will that story receive publication, but it will also be turned into a short literary film by the Digital Americana creative team. Check out the video for last year’s winner, “It Was Time To Escape Again.”

Digital Americana is also proud to announce that this year’s guest judge is Adam Cushman of Red14Films, a film production company that specializes in book trailers and other literary-to-film adaptations.

The deadline for entries is December 1, 2013. All entries must be unpublished, original creative flash fiction that is up to 501 words in length. There are no other restrictions, including genre.

For more information, visit Digital Americana’s contest page here.

One thing I’ll always associate Clancy with a moment from the first day of my eighth grade English class when we were asked what books we read over the summer. I told the teacher I had consumed Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor and he didn’t believe me. That summer was all Clancy for me, from that giant paperback I’d poached from my dad’s collection, to repeat viewings of The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, and Patriot Games on VHS from the local video store.

Clancy’s fiction was simultaneously a product of his time and ahead of it. The introduction of Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October hit bookshelves during the political posturing Reagan-era that brought fears of nuclear annihilation back to the forefront of the public consciousness. Ryan was an American James Bond, only functioning in a much more grounded and believable world of espionage than that fictional British secret agent. The world of Clancy’s novels, where wars between nations were common and perhaps a bit hyper-real at times, was one that seemed to always be just around the corner, especially during those final years of the Cold War. The public’s consumption of fictional wars drove Clancy to the top of the bestseller lists, and placed him in that league of writers that transcend the shelves and become household names. While his production may have slowed over previous years, when your fiction causes real life events to be described “like a Clancy novel” then you’ve entered the pantheon of modern popular writers.

Without Clancy we wouldn’t have any of the authors like Brad Thor or the late Vince Flynn. However, where those authors deal with international incidents on a personal level, a sign of our current sociopolitical times, Clancy always had a bigger picture mentality, which is why he’ll be remembered for a long time to come while they may not. He had an almost preternatural ability to delve into international incidents, which only felt more prophetic as the world entered the new century. The book I mentioned above, Debt of Honor, ends with a Japanese pilot crashing a passenger jet into the US Capitol Building, something that seemed unbelievable until September 2011. Perhaps this is the bigger reason that Clancy’s fiction lost some its popularity over his later years: the world hadn’t necessarily become like one of his novels, it became worse. It became scarier. Reading about fictional terror is like reading about apocalypses, readers like to imagine what won’t be. That becomes difficult in a world where the fear of terror is shoved down the public’s throat by politicians, leaks showcase that espionage is targeted home and abroad, drone strikes occur all the time, and the Conservative policies Clancy supported his entire life seem more aimed at creating strife between the American people and serving their own interests than anything else. This is why the supernatural is so popular these days, because zombies are as unlikely as a state of constant war seemed in the 1990s to general readers. This could be why his novels that followed 9/11 focused on Jack Ryan, Jr. going through CIA training instead of dealing with the massive geopolitical thrillers of his earlier work.

No matter the reason, Tom Clancy will still be remembered as one of the most popular novelists of the late 1900s, and will live on in other ways outside his fiction. Video game developer Ubisoft purchased the rights to use Clancy’s name for an undisclosed sum. Gamers today may not know his novels, but they know his name, and the world of espionage that he created through series like Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon. With a new Jack Ryan movie and the novel Command Authority being released this winter, Tom Clancy will live on for a long time to come.

-Todd Natti

@toddnatti ]]> http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/some-thoughts-on-tom-clancy/feed/ 0 http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/silenthistorywins2013prizeforstorytelling/ http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/silenthistorywins2013prizeforstorytelling/#comments Wed, 02 Oct 2013 17:09:28 +0000 DigitalAmericana http://thedigitalamericana.com/wall/?p=1747 Digital Americana, a leading digital literary magazine, has awarded the 2013 Prize for Storytelling to “The Silent History.”

Described as “entirely revolutionary” by WIRED, “The Silent History” tells the story of a generation of children who were born without the ability to create or comprehend language. Digital Americana chose the novella for its innovation in the field of digital publishing. The creators of “The Silent History” received $500 and an elegantly engraved crystal award from Digital Americana upon receiving the honor.

“Telling stories on multiple platforms is a tremendously exciting discipline. ‘The Silent History’ exemplifies all that is possible when you combine literary excellence with the latest technology,” said Tony Fasciano, editor in chief of Digital Americana. “We are very pleased to give this award to the creators of this innovative piece of work.”

Digital Americana is a literary journal with a state-of-the-art publishing mindset, dedicated to showcasing a modern American sensibility through fiction, nonfiction, poetry, multimedia and culture. It established its annual digital book award to bring attention to the craft of multiplatform storytelling and to give independent publishers an incentive for experimenting with digital publishing and transmedia. The magazine has released several issues and interactive creative writing features since 2010, with its most recent release being the Consume issue for Spring and Summer 2013. The next issue is set to come out mid-fall—it will be the magazine’s first issue to feature an original short documentary film, which will be part of an ongoing series about local Americana.

“The Silent History” is a creatively told novella involving more than 120 testimonials from parents, teachers, doctors and others touched by the so-called “silent phenomenon.” Formatted specifically for the iPad and iPhone, the app is now available on the App Store. The interactive novella was created by Eli Horowitz, Kevin Moffett, Matthew Derby and Russell Quinn.

Winners of the Digital Americana Prize for Storytelling are picked based on their ability to design a cohesive digital reading experience through an app, interactive PDF, enhanced e-book or interactive iBook. Writers must demonstrate purposeful use of the medium and be able to enrich a well-told original story with an interactive design.

“A few years ago, we felt frustrated with certain aspects of digital publishing,” said Quinn. “It was during this period that naysayers were dooming and glooming about the demise of everything sacred about long-form fiction. We agreed with some of what they were saying, but also believed that e-books could be so much more than a slightly worse version of the print edition. Since then, there have been many exciting digital-fiction projects and the future seems just a little brighter. ‘The Silent History’ was our attempt to see what was possible, and we’re thrilled to be awarded the 2013 Digital Americana Prize for Storytelling.”

Digital Americana is now accepting entries for its 501-word creative “flash fiction” writing contest, which has a final deadline of December 1. The winner will receive publication in the magazine and a production of a short film based on the submitted story. Entries will be judged by Adam Cushman, president of Red14 Films in Los Angeles and the producer of more than 20 literary shorts over the course of his career.

To learn more and to access “The Silent History,” visit http://www.thesilenthistory.com. For more information on Digital Americana and its previous and upcoming issues, go to http://www.thedigitalamericana.com.

[via prweb]

NOTE: THIS LONGFORM PIECE CONTAINS SPOILERS OF MAJOR PLOT POINTS OF BREAKING BAD UP THROUGH LAST SUNDAY’S EPISODE, “GRANITE STATE.” THE PIECE AND SPOILERS BEGIN AFTER THE PICTURE.

In the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad, we find Walter White ‘on the lam’. At once invoking and subtly parodying Henry David Thoreau’s beloved Walden, Walt finds himself holed up in a cabin in New Hampshire with only the most basic of amenities to hand. As the austerity of the environment intensifies the sense of his isolation, one of the underlying themes of the show comes to light. For beyond its virtuosic plot twists and dramatic set pieces, Breaking Bad offers some telling insights into the peculiarly American myth of individualism. In depicting the Promethean making and remaking of one Walter White, the show vacillates between celebration and denunciation, as it prompts us to contemplate the enduring appeal of what Herbert Hoover called ‘rugged individualism’. Through its complex alchemy of character, tone, environment and narrative, the show also highlights the potential pitfalls that might meet one who takes this myth of the omnipotent individual too seriously. In this article, the first of two on the subject, I will examine the most pervasive version of individualism, what I will call strong individualism. In doing so, I aim to better appreciate how it is that a nation’s self-image and culture came to be so strongly tied to an idea of the heroic (and anti-heroic) individual, and how this mainstay of American identity might be reinforced or undermined in series like Breaking Bad.

The varied meanings that might be subsumed under the term ‘individualism’ have a longer history than the term itself. For instance, one can find expressions of proto-individualist ideas in thinkers as diverse as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. But it was Alexis de Tocqueville who first coined the term ‘individualism’ and gave it a substantive meaning whose relevance and influence endure to this day. In his observations of American life in the 1830s, Tocqueville described individualism as a ‘mature and calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends’. The contemporary resonance of this provisional definition is testament to its robust legacy within the American psyche, its many iterations filtering into the national culture. As an important new addition to that national culture, Breaking Bad partakes in the re-articulation of this idea. This much is established from the outset, where it is clear that Walter White’s worldview closely conforms to Tocqueville’s definition of individualism. Walt’s moral outlook is extremely narrow, defined almost entirely by his tight-knit family. His ethical cartography permits little if any space to non-family members, as the long, grim litany of ‘collateral’ victims attests to. This moral myopia is nicely mirrored in the show’s location, which, as Robert Alford argues, serves as an apt backdrop to Walt’s contorted re-enactments of ‘frontier masculinity’. Indeed, as the series progresses, Walt most fully inhabits the Heisenberg persona when he ventures into the boondocks of New Mexico, the historical and cultural embellishments of the past perhaps at the back of his mind (and certainly at the forefront of the writer’s).

Frankly, there would be little to recommend the series if it were merely a restatement of such problematic refrains as frontier masculinity. Sure enough, in Breaking Bad the ordinarily straightforward trope of strong individualism that underpins so much of American culture (both past and present) is rendered ambiguous. As Walt’s swelling self-belief, arrogance and pride give rise to increasingly reprehensible actions and delusions, serving to inflate his ‘heroic’ alter ego and consolidate his drug empire, it is all the more effective when external forces (such as other people’s needs and demands, familial responsibility, complicated divisions of labour, financial redistribution, temporal limitations and other contingencies) re-enter the frame. The writers regularly indulge in the perpetuation of Walt’s self-aggrandizing (for example, in the outlandish closing scene of the episode ‘Say My Name’), even garnering our unlikely support for the character, before unceremoniously reversing his fortunes, unravelling all grand plans and debunking the myth of heroic individualism in the process.

As the narrative of the series evolves, we learn that the same social, structural, interpersonal and economic factors that shaped Walt’s dejected, unfulfilling, ‘pre-diagnosis’ life come to undermine his attempts at self-determination. For instance, recall the moment in the episode ‘Hazard Pay’ when an angry Walt looks on as Mike divides up large piles of their cash in order to pay the various dealers, enforcers and mules, not to mention Saul Goodman and Vamonos Pest (in other words, the unseen workers whose extracted labour is essential to Walt’s success).

The resentment Walt harbours here is quintessentially individualist in the American sense. It is no different from that of those fabled ‘wealth creators’, the innovative, free-thinking individuals whose ‘hard work’ and inventiveness are apparently so rare and precious that they must be compensated for by greater tax relief and diminished social responsibility. Indeed, by this point in the series, Walt’s individualism has become so bloated that he cannot accept that his work, talent and earnings are unavoidably dependent upon that of others. One might say that he has become hyper-individualist. He has internalized and pursued the logic of individualism so resolutely that he now believes himself to be fully a ‘self-made man’.

This self-making might appear to be just another part of Walt’s dramatic ‘transformation’ from high-school chemistry teacher to crystal meth kingpin. (The show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, has even noted that as Walter became more sinister, his posture can be seen to improve and his gait becomes more upright). But if we cast our minds back to earlier seasons, Walt’s stubborn individualism was already well established at the time of his diagnosis. When his former colleagues at Gray Matter Technologies, Gretchen and Elliot – with all due tact and propriety – offer Walt a considerable compensation, more than enough to cover his medical costs, he flat out refuses. Similarly, he is uncomfortable to discover that Walter Jr. has been soliciting anonymous donations online (so much so that he enlists the aid of Saul, who suggests they might employ a hacker from Eastern Europe to use the website as a money-laundering device!). Walt’s misplaced pride and frontier-derived image of masculinity will simply not allow him to accept external assistance. Any resolution to his family’s economic woes must come solely from him, since he has internalized the ‘provider’ ideal that is part and parcel of strong individualism. As Walt’s former employer Gustavo Fring put it to him, ‘A man provides for his family … because he a man’. By now, the illogic of tautology is enough to animate the American family man.

In its restaging of masculine self-sufficiency, Breaking Bad speaks to another of the core precepts of individualism first observed by Tocqueville: ‘They [individuals] owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands’. This sentiment is replicated in the contemporaneous work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose influence on the construction of America’s mythical individualism can hardly be overstated. In his famous paean to ‘self-reliance’, Emerson casts society in the role of an emasculating and oppressing combatant: ‘Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood[!] of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion’. So, to be self-reliant is to reclaim one’s ‘manhood’ and liberty, whereas to be other-reliant in any way is deemed emasculating and restrictive.

Needless to say, this aspect of American identity has remained ubiquitous and it can be seen to motivate the actions of not just Walt, but every adult male character in Breaking Bad. What is more, the pursuit of self-reliance implicitly affirms a doctrine of personal responsibility. This is the idea that you – and you alone – are responsible for yourself. Extending the Lockean basis of private property, the self is literally yours. As a unique and autonomous individual, you possess it and alienate it as you please. Those assenting to this vision of selfhood will likely see Walter White’s ‘self’ as undergoing a linear transformation at the behest of its owner. But in actuality, Walt is increasingly divided between multiple selves. Or, if one insists on the idea of a singular self, then the latter is radically fragmented, disordered and uncertain. Only in the most limited sense can Walt be said to possess his self.

In the ‘Ozymandias’ episode, after Walt has finally been forced to flee his family – that sacrosanct institution so often pressganged into servicing his acrobatic rationalizations – he calls Skyler and knowingly performs an act of confession that is both personal and public (for he is aware of the police’s presence and the implications of this fact). The element of performance here is crucial, for the scene is complicated by Walt’s facial reactions and verbal pauses, which suggest a temporary breaking of character. He doesn’t truly believe what he is saying, but he says it nonetheless to at least put Skyler in the clear. But the cracks in the façade are obvious, for Walt’s hyperbole is straight from the handbook of action-film villainy. Amid his bluster, he exclaims: ‘I built this. Me, alone – nobody else’, reprising Tony Montana’s hot-tub hubris in Scarface: ‘Who put this thing together? Me, that’s who!’ Indeed, this is foreshadowed earlier in the season, in ‘Hazard Pay’, when Walt is shown babe in arms with Holly and Walter Jr. watching the end of Scarface. He and Junior merrily repeat Montana’s climactic outburst (‘Say hello to my little friend!’), much to Skyler’s displeasure. These moments intimate that just as the value of individualism is historically and geographically embedded and reproduced, so the gangsterism of an individual ‘gone bad’ is fashioned after the precedents set by a nation’s culture. The individualist demand to be self-reliant, self-making and non-conformist abjures its own presuppositions, archetypes and exclusions. Moreover, it makes demands of people that cannot be met without access to sets of resources that are not simply unequally distributed, but actively denied certain people.

Following the murder of Hank Schrader, we see Walter White fall to the ground in utter despair, his glasses skewed, his mouth a dark void. The moral boundary of the family has been breached in a most ruthless way. But Walt’s desolation is not just for the immediate event at hand; it is also in recognition of the gulf between his self-image and his reality. Invoking Shelley’s sonnet (from which the episode takes its title), the pomposity of the heroic, empire-building individual – the self-proclaimed ‘King of Kings’, or one might say ‘self-made man’ – is pricked, leaving little beyond ruined lives, prostrated bodies and the hollow words of an egotist in its wake.

As Walt’s delusions of omnipotence reach Randian proportions, they finally produce a grotesque vision of what becomes of the doctrine of ‘personal responsibility’ when it is taken too far. For the same ideology that wants to heap praise on individual victories and successes must also dispense personal blame for losses and failures. Many would likely ‘bite the bullet’ on this point, accepting the inadequacies or yet more ‘collateral damage’. But this belief can lead to some unpalatable situations, as Breaking Bad consistently shows. To take one significant example, consider the disturbing scene in the episode entitled ‘Phoenix’, in which Walt fails to intervene as Jesse’s girlfriend, Jane, passed out after a drugs binge, begins to choke on her own vomit before asphyxiating to death. Walt’s inaction results from a conflict of interests: Jane has blackmailed him, threatening to disclose his activities to the DEA and turn him in, which would mean that his efforts to secure a future for the White family after his death will have been a failure. While we may presume that under normal circumstances Walt would have turned Jane onto her side, the express threat to his family’s inheritance and wellbeing is enough to override any basic compassion. Faced with the relative ‘convenience’ of Jane’s overdose, then, Walt embraces the individualist principle of non-intervention so as to absolve himself of any responsibility.

Of course, this scene is chilling, and Walt’s decision not to act is morally reprehensible. But in a way, what the scene makes painfully present and particular has always been an underlying principle of American individualism. An example pertinent to the original conceit of Breaking Bad is that of the nation’s healthcare, the provision of which follows strictly individualist values. If you fall ill or have an accident and require medical help, it is your prior responsibility to have put sufficient insurances in place to cover the cost of any intervention. The infiltration of the doctrine of individualism into healthcare serves to substantially shift all responsibility from the social to the individual, from the public to the private, confirming a nation built upon a contract of mutual indifference.

To end on a speculative note, perhaps this individualist tradition can also be traced in the use of Walt Whitman to mark a pivotal point in the unfolding of Breaking Bad. While Whitman’s role in the shaping of American identity is canonized alongside Emerson, it might be worth drawing out one of their subtle divergences. For Emerson, the individual self is defined by breaking from the bonds of others, refusing the implied passivity of circumstance and embracing one’s creative powers: ‘But when you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic’. By contrast, Whitman’s individualism is profoundly and unavoidably bound to the universal, the mass, the common voice. It is open, unfinished, fluid, exchanging certainty of self for conditionality, awaiting connection to what is outside itself. The ‘Myself’ of Whitman’s Song is only completed through its environment and other people. Whitman’s ‘I’ is polyvalent and dynamic: ‘I am large. I contain multitudes’. Rather than encouraging isolation, the Whitmanian self extends bridges to other people and things. A deep other-reliance is at work here, which runs counter to the absolute self-reliance of strong individualism established by the likes of Emerson and Thoreau, reproduced in the political field by figures such as Herbert Hoover and later Ronald Reagan, and in the iconic images of frontier masculinity. Since the dramatic narrative of Walter White has so often obeyed the egotism of Emersonian self-reliance, it is only fitting that it is Whitman who receives explicit recognition at the moment of Hank’s epiphanic trip to the restroom.

As the series nears its conclusion, the prominent readings of Breaking Bad will no doubt hold it up as exemplary of a nuanced and detailed psychological account of one man’s dramatic decline from good to evil. But for me, the show stands out for its dual attack: on the social shortcomings (particularly in healthcare provision) that fail so many people, but also on the individualist responses of those who try to ‘go it alone’. The outsourcing of responsibility from the public to the personal is one of the driving forces behind America’s rugged individualism. The most telling moments in the series are those when it pierces the twin veils of psychologism and individualism, and instead illuminates the concentric, web-like structure of relations in which every character is inextricably embedded. Perhaps the appeal of shows like Breaking Bad is so strong because the writers manage to sustain a tonal ambivalence, at once evoking their own cultural history while remaining critical of that history’s blind spots. In the end, Walter White could take a leaf out of Whitman’s book: I am not contained between my hat and boots.

-Simon Mussell

@simonmussel

The series finale of Breaking Bad airs Sunday at 9pm on AMC.

Ajax Penumbra 1969 doesn’t necessarily achieve the same sense of wonder that was contained in Sloan’s original novel, but there is still magic within these digital pages. The story of how Penumbra came to San Francisco and first discovered the 24-hour bookstore, then under different ownership, is a nice way to revisit a few of the characters Sloan first introduced us to last year. It was a pleasure to see Penumbra and Corvina in different times than that which they find themselves in during our present day, in a San Francisco amid the waning days of the Summer of Love and the modern city being constructed above and below.

Since Google cannot be a part of this story (though there is a nice knowing wink to its future creation here), Sloan has to focus on other aspects within the world of books. There is more classic research here, searching through archives and libraries, than in the previous novel. Whereas that book was more a classic mystery centered on the bookstore itself, here Sloan is able to tell a story of a treasure hunt. The narrative will bring a smile to the face to people that have lost themselves browsing the stacks of a library or a bookstore, as what better treasure is there to find than an antique tome lost to the ages?

The other joy is how in Ajax Penumbra 1969 Sloan is able to include the building blocks of where the digital focus of the novel come from. A character here is at the forefront of the coming computer age, and the pieces of the story that touch on that industry in its infancy further bridge the connection between the two works. It’s also amazing when reading those sections to not only see how far the world of computers has come, but how much foresight those within that world had of what the future would hold. The inclusion also gives further insight into some of the parts of Penumbra’s character in the novel without giving anything away.

Which leads to the question that accompanies all prequels: which story should be read first? Here, as with so many others, the better route to take is to read Ajax Penumbra 1969 after you’ve experienced the novel Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. There isn’t anything within this release that will spoil the plot of the novel, but part of the magic of 24-Hour Bookstore is how the reader is introduced to the titular establishment in the modern day. To have this piece be your first encounter of the bookstore will take some of the wonder away from the novel, which would be a shame. So go read that wonderful book and then come back to Ajax Penumbra 1969. It’ll feel like visiting with some old friends when they weren’t so old. The magic will still be there. After all, it is a 24-bookstore.

-Todd Natti

@toddnatti

Ajax Penumbra 1969 is available now through iTunes, Amazon, and other digital sources. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is also available through digital sources and as a paperback in bookstores everywhere. Including mysterious ones of the 24-hour variety.

After reading the sequel, Doctor Sleep, I am still not sure if it was necessary, but am glad that King took the time to revisit Danny Torrance 36 years after his fateful winter with his parents and the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel. The novel’s prologue, taking place only a few years after the events of The Shining, brought a smile to my face. I realized that while I may not have been wondering what happened after that book, I was glad to know. Very glad. If you’re a fan of that novel, you will be too. But it must be noted that Doctor Sleep is a sequel to King’s book, not the Kubrick film. If you enter the world of this sequel without reading the 1977 novel, you will be confused at parts, and a lot within these pages relies on what happened during King’s original vision of what happened at the Overlook. Besides, there’s a reason why that book is among those included Peter Boxall’s 1001 Books You Should Read Before You Die. It has to be read. When you’re done and you come back to Doctor Sleep, you’ll be happy you took the time.

Does this mean that this book is without its problems? No, of course not. Not everything in Doctor Sleep works perfectly. After the initial prologue section, “Lockbox,” there is some pretty clunky character introduction. You can feel King’s prose wanting us to be afraid of the group known as the True Knot, but they do not compare to other evils King has put on the page. During the novel’s first half, any section that doesn’t directly deal with Danny Torrance can be a little rough at times and can read like they are there only to fill pages. However, by the time the novel reaches its center, or its “hub,” and the stories of Danny, the True Knot, and a little girl named Abra, who has a Shining all her own, start coming together, there is a much better sense of unity and Doctor Sleep powers through it’s latter half with all narrative strength fueling the fire.

Save for the few early concerns, Doctor Sleep is further evidence that America’s greatest living storyteller is at the height of his abilities. King has the knack of being able to capture what readers, Constant or otherwise, want to happen. He has always been strongest at capturing the mundane nature of every day life before some force of nature, whether ghosts, monsters, or time itself, comes to ruin the day. It’s those moments that make Constant Readers smile and laugh out loud at facing something evil, because we know somewhere in the back of our minds that such moments will not last.

Doctor Sleep builds to that old story King has returned to again and again: battle between good and evil. Fitting for a novel very centered on the notion of wheels and how the past comes back around. The showdown within Doctor Sleep is on a level that we haven’t seen since It or The Stand, the latter being King’s quintessential tale of light versus dark. What comes before that moment, the few narrative missteps or certain plot developments (one in particular) that will even give Constant Readers pause, are forgivable because he still has the natural ability ensnare the reader in the story, to lose ourselves in his language.

Literary critic Alan Bloom once qualified King as being the modern day author of what were once known as “penny dreadfuls.” That may have been so at one time, but King has consistently worked on cementing his literary legacy. And, after all, penny dreadfuls sold quite a lot of copy, didn’t they? And on a personal note, as a Constant Reader and an English Academic, I’d rather have King’s prose in the hands of the masses than anyone else.

In the end, Doctor Sleep gets my recommendation. It may play upon our nostalgia for The Shining, both as one of the seminal works of fiction in the last fifty years and as a piece of our culture, and read at times like modern King using his own authorial shining to contact the ghost of the horror writer whose books made him more than a household name, but it’s still a great read. Yes, it’s more horror than some of his recent work, but at the same time it’s not. I don’t think King can write that those old terror stories anymore. We’ve evolved too much as a culture with him as a central part and he’s evolved too much as a writer. Is that to say that Doctor Sleep isn’t a read that won’t have you flipping the pages until the end? No, it’s not. King may have lost some of his bite as a horror writer (he’s always excelled at writing about the horror that people do to one another or that of the world in general than ghouls or goblins or even to ourselves, as his recent novels Under the Dome, 11/22/63, and Joyland have shown), but he has only improved as a storyteller.

Does Doctor Sleep have its faults? Sure. Will you love every minute you get to spend with Dan Torrance and Abra? Yes. Will you relish in the fact that you didn’t know that you wanted more of the world of The Shining after almost four decades? Without a doubt.

In the Author’s Note (not to worry, no spoilers here), King writes: “I enjoyed finding Danny Torrance again and following his adventures. I hope you did, too. If that’s the case, Constant Reader, we’re all good.”

Yes, Uncle Stevie, I’d say we are indeed.

-Todd Natti

@toddnatti

Doctor Sleep is available now from Scribner.