2016-2017

2017 feb-Apr

Editor's Choice: The Bizarrely Human Mind of Haruki Murakami

If you are looking for a book where you give little to it and expect to gain a lot from it; if you are looking for a book that tells you everything you already know about the world so that you can feel secure in your perspective of it; if you are looking for a book that follows along a linear path and never tries to blur the boundaries of it; if you are looking for a book with any or all of these qualities, then Haruki Murakami is the not the kind of writer for you. 

Murakami is, however, one of the most bizarre and fascinating writers I have ever encountered. But let me explain. I don’t use “bizarre” in one of those catch-all instances that try to reel in readers on the promise that his books are the kind of books you shove in a friends face and say, “Isn’t that crazy?” No, I use “bizarre” because I can’t think of any other word to use. 

I must say, at the time of composition, I have only read two of Murakami’s novels, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore: a mere dent in an otherwise massive oeuvre spanning nearly forty years. I’ve found his work so enjoyable that I’ve opted for that Ancient Greek virtue of moderation, reading only one of his works per year. If I hadn’t done this, I’d always be reading Murakami. 

What makes his work bizarre is the way that the magical and the strange effortlessly intermingle with the real. In his novels, which take place in contemporary Japan, one can expect to encounter teenage runaways, unmotivated husbands, and veterans of the Sino-Japanese War. Normal, right? But beyond the guise of normalcy one eventually encounters a compromised old man with the ability to converse with cats, a pair of sister mediums named after the islands Malta and Crete, and an unsuspecting pimp named Colonel Sanders. 

Such is the way that Murakami’s strange magic flows: everywhere present, but nowhere entirely apparent. It’s always there, though. If you just search deeper, you will find it. Perhaps this is why most of his novels are deemed “metaphysical.” But I must stress his metaphysics is in no way superfluous or unsubstantiated; rather, his is the kind that exposes human reality for what it is: riddled with strange, unexplainable mystery and magic. 

And I hope one day that, like Kafka, we can anoint Murakami’s name to denote the feeling of bizarre, yet all too human reality. Until that day, I will forever use “bizarre.”

On Drugs, Venusians, and the American Dream

“A man went looking for America. And couldn't find it anywhere...” 

If you are looking for movie suggestions, there is arguably no film more innovative and more influential in all of modern cinema than Easy Rider (1969). Period. Along with Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate, Easy Rider established the dichotomy between the Golden Age of Cinema and the New Hollywood Era, which represented a paradigm shift in conventional filmmaking ideals. It inspired directors to buck nearly every classical filmmaking norm and paved the way for Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and countless other renowned directors to come into prominence. Every director, every actor, and every filmgoer owes a debt of gratitude to Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda – the two men who wrote, directed, and starred in the classic movie. 

Classical Hollywood cinema was largely controlled by the studio system, which placed an emphasis on continuity, linearity, and classic narrative structure. Good always triumphed over evil, the beautiful starlet always ended up with the debonair leading man, conflicts were always magically resolved in the final five minutes – all that jazz. Easy Rider is pretty much the exact opposite. 

In disarray reminiscent of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Easy Rider throws the audience straight into the story, defying the conventional narrative logic of classical Hollywood filmmaking. There is absolutely no expository content at all. The film opens with a drug deal in Mexico, where two disheveled, unkempt hippies wearing raggedy clothes are moving a metric shit ton of cocaine, and all of the dialogue is in Spanish. We don’t even get the main characters’ first names. The nonlinear structure becomes even more pronounced as the film continues, augmented by jump cuts, flash forwards, axis shifts, you name it. Pretty much very cool trick you could do with a camera was performed, and pretty much every rule that previous filmmakers had meticulously established was ignored. Accepted filmmaking conventions were willfully disregarded, and with great effect. 

Without spoiling the entire story, the main premise of the film is that two messy looking hippies (whose names are eventually revealed to be Wyatt and Billy) use the money they secured from the drug deal to purchase a couple of motorcycles and ride eastward from California to attend Mardi Gras. On the way, they spend time at a traditional farmstead, briefly join a cult, get arrested for existing, and philosophize with a young Jack Nicholson about Venusians and society. 

The journey from west to east represents the reversal of American values, connoting the hypocrisy of society and the façade of the American Dream. It does not depict how good life was or could be, but how life is and is not, moving beyond the superficial and the theatrical and touching upon the actual. 

With notes of nihilism and iconoclasm, Easy Rider coincided with the rise of the counterculture movement during the mid to late 1960s. And just as the counterculture movement demonstrated that there was more than one way to live a good life, Easy Rider demonstrated that there was more than one way to make a good movie.

Imitation or Art in the Case for Black Biopics

Throughout history, the progression of our society’s moral code has been shown through film. To depict the acceptance of African Americans, movies such as Blackboard Jungle (1955) and Raisin in the Sun (1961) came out starring Sidney Poitier. Cinema's first black leading man continued to break down barriers when he won an Oscar in 1964 for Lilies of the Field. Racial prejudice could not stop what Poitier started and actors such as Denzel Washington and Will Smith have continued. However, with the mass production of black biopics today, it seems that racial bias has found another way to cripple black art. These movies such as Hidden Figures (2016) and Selma (2014) do not offer new material for black actors and actress and their focus on historical points do not allow for interpretation. I argue that this virtue of art is the most important, considering that art, as defined by Greek philosophy, is “imitation in the sense of re-presentation, not copying.” Furthermore, to achieve this means allowing for idiosyncrasies between life and its depiction. The opposing purpose of biopics allows me to assert that these movies, although changed in accordance with the director’s view of these events, are one of the lowest forms of art. 

However, if you have an issue with the depictions of contemporary black life or just prefer movies about the past, there is another option. Period dramas, such as The Color Purple (1985) and Fences (2016) offer black artist roles that can be interpreted and are artistic statements put forth by black authors. This material, although usually dated in the context of severe white oppression, offers strong character development that is not inhibited by the strict formula found in biopics. This traditional biopic formula—which typically unfolds to depict early struggles, a small triumph, then the main conflict, and ultimately larger success—puts actors and actress into a mold that restricts them from presenting their ability as a dynamic artist. With blacks constantly relegated to this genre, both the Oscars and the film industry at large are to blame in the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. This systematic approach to the issue of diversity in Hollywood calls on the audience to be more demanding of the industry to stop the notion of writing more roles for African Americans and adopt the understanding that African Americans can act in any role. This view will not only open up possibilities for black actors and actress, but also communicate a larger understanding about black life that is still obscured today. So the next time you sit down to watch a black biopic, consider if the movie is helping to diversify Hollywood or not. And maybe decide to watch Dope (2015) or Creed (2015) instead.

In Transit

I am pouring myself a cup of coffee in the Wawa next to my bus stop, silently wondering if it’s finally worth it to get my license. I have already taken one bus to get here, Cottman and Rockwell, and I have about twenty minutes to kill before the next bus comes to take me to school. Although school is only a thirty-minute drive, it takes me more than an hour on this route. At least, I tell myself, I am helping to save the environment by taking public transportation, but that all too familiar picture of smog bellowing from a bus’s exhaust pipe leads me to concede a final thought--kind of.

Waiting in the cold is something of a hobby of mine. I enjoy seeing my warmth escape me, the feeling of minuscule hairs on my face freezing. But it’s moments like these, my thoughts amidst my head, my body silent, that makes me question the validity of my existence. The idea is absurd in its solipsism, but the premise is simple: how can we be truly aware of our existing? Or, better but, how can we be truly aware of the existence of others?

Sartre seems to have an answer, which I quite like. (Indulge me: this scenario is not entirely his, but its brilliance is.) Imagine you are walking down the hallway in your apartment building and hearing a noise from the other side of one of the doors. The couple inside are fighting, swearing at each other so loud you need not even go closer to the door, you can hear it all. Then, you hear glass shatter and a thump. Silence. You are compelled to see what has happened, but the only way of knowing is to bend down and place your eye on the keyhole to see inside. You do this, and inside you see nothing out of the ordinary. They keep the couch in the same place as you, same brown paneling, just a bit more stained with time. Further surveying the room, you notice a painting hanging loosely on the wall, cracked down the middle, a shoe lying on the floor below. All this, no people.

But footsteps. Footsteps from down the hall signals to your brain that your body has been hunched over this keyhole for five minutes. You are now aware of the other looking at you looking into the keyhole, and you are immediately overcome with shame. There is something telling in this shame, something about the other and his or her footsteps that you cannot doubt into nonexistence in the way a solipsist might.

As for me, I see a women coming out of the Wawa. She is on the phone, mid conversation with a person I probably will never see in my life. That person she is talking to is doing something at this very moment I will never know, thinking things I can never possibly understand. There is something telling in this uncertainty, something about its plethora of possibility that I have no other choice but to shrug off this bug of solipsism.

Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

Time travel, war, suicide, gross satire, The Three Musketeers, life, beauty, love, prayer, a Blue Fairy Godmother, aliens? What? This book has it all. It’s sad, hilarious, serious, and ridiculous. There’s not an emotion out there that I can think of which this book doesn’t tap on the shoulder of.

Slaughterhouse Five is a satirical novel by Kurt Vonnegut about World War II, and one of my favorite novels. The story is essentially a journey through the life and time of a soldier named Billy Pilgrim. Billy externally faces various struggles with society: his most interesting conflict with society is the fact that Billy wholeheartedly believes he was kidnapped by Tralfamadorians (yes, aliens! I won’t give you too much here, but if none of this sparks your interest, then I’ll just mention the fact that Billy is displayed in a “zoo in a simulated Earthling habitat” (Vonnegut 143)), but, society rejects his accusations. This may surprise you, but the whole alien subplot here totally counts as a manifestation of Billy’s extreme internal struggle to cope with the tragedy that surrounds him.

Throughout the book, the setting is shown as erratic, random, unusual, dissociated. It jumps through time and space, the real and unreal—paralleling the mind of the main character Billy Pilgrim, who is stuck in a life of conflict, and misfortune.

Now, imagine you’re scrolling through Facebook. You let reality fade into the background as a small screen sucks you in. One minute you are listening to the latest gossip from a friend, the next you’re learning a recipe for the best chocolate cake (ever!). Now you’re in a third world country, feeling sadness, and anger. Next thing you know you’re learning to dance, learning information on WWII, or of a new (to you) kind of fish, then begin watching a trailer for the latest sci-fi movie. You are jumping around through time and reality. Your emotions are all over the place, and you have no idea what will come next. This experience is similar to the experience of reading Slaughterhouse Five. Billy tries in many ways to cope with his experiences—the huge amount of tragedy that surrounds his life. He becomes stuck in a weird disassociation of time and reality as a method to watch his life over and over, in order to learn acceptance of what he has been through. War, home, aliens, dreams, home, war, televisions playing backwards, making love in a human zoo, home—the narrative structure of the book jumps through scenes that take you through a whirlwind of vivid imagery and emotion, and is really the most interesting aspect of the book. We are taken through a journey which can place us anywhere at any time, and just as Billy, we’re are not entirely prepared for the jump, but go along with it as best we can. We analyze, and accept.  

Billy is a wonderfully crafted dynamic character who, in many unique ways, changes in order to cope with his experiences. This change acts as a substitute for the control he lacks in life. He was thrown into war and subjected to the violence of it. As hard as Billy tries, “Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future” (Vonnegut 77). He cannot change the life he has lived, but he can live, and he can cope and accept (in his own way). Billy, who was weak, ill-prepared and lacked dignity, ultimately was able to walk into the fire of war and come out the other side, unscathed—showing his strength. He has an uncanny ability to change his attitude in order to cope with the death-filled surroundings that endure his life, even his own death, in which he knows the exact date of and how it will happen (So it goes). His unique thinking enables him to change from a weak person to a fearless observer of life. 

Slaughterhouse Five is an extremely interesting and fun novel to read, and analyze. I recommend it highly.

On Hippos in Austria

When you travel, it’s amazing the things that stick with you the strongest. I traveled to Austria for Spring Preview. A beautiful city with undercurrents of history that you could actually feel, yet the story I most often find myself telling people is about hippos in a zoo. 

The zoo at Schonbrunn Palace is just a typical zoo. It’s got lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), along with monkeys and penguins. They even have a panda and her two cubs. Out of all of the amazing things I had seen in Austria up to that point, the story of the hippos is one I tell often. The zoo wasn’t even my favorite part of the entire trip to Austria; that is held in reserve for some of the more historical and beautiful aspects of Vienna and Salzburg. 

So why the hippos? That is a question that’s hard to pin down an answer to, but I think it has to do with the fact that it’s something I’ve never seen before. I’ve seen museums and pretty buildings before, and in all honesty I’ve seen zoos before, but I’ve never seen hippos in the way I did at the zoo in Austria. I was level with the hippos and they were barely three feet away from me. These hippos were large, two females and one very large male. To be so close to one of the most dangerous animals was an entirely new experience.

I don’t think I would have felt the same way if I’d been standing that close to a lion. Yes, lions are predators with sharp teeth and claws, but these hippos were large creatures with powerful crushing jaws that could disappear under the water without a trace. When you’ve grown up hearing stories about how hippos are some of the most dangerous river creatures in Africa due to their extreme territoriality, being so close to them, close enough to touch them, is an entirely new level of zoo experience.

I could go on and on about the things I saw and experienced in Austria, I could tell you about the sites, the atmosphere, and the history of the city. But it’s the hippos that stuck with me. 

I'm Not in London Anymore

I feel as if I still can’t talk about London. There hasn’t been enough time to fully process everything. It’s almost as if my brain truly believes I haven’t left even after being home a significant amount of time. Before I cross the street I look the wrong way first and sometimes glance at the sidewalk for the white lettering telling me which way I’m supposed to be looking. Here we are two weeks later and I almost asked the boy in front of me if he was in the queue. Luckily, I caught myself just in time. Yesterday, I was in Jefferson Station on the escalators and I felt a little out of place standing on the left side. Because in any of the tube stations, there are plenty of signs dictating that you must stand on the right side because the left side of the escalators is for walking only. There are just these little details that stick with you, even if you’re only there for a week. 

It certainly doesn’t feel like I’m in England anymore. This Pennsylvania weather feels more like the cloudy and rainy days we stereotype London’s weather to be. During our week there in “grey” city of London, we only experienced one sprinkling of rain. And there wasn’t a blizzard or thunderstorms, just some cloudy mornings and sunny afternoons. Maybe we only got lucky during our week there. Or maybe I just miss it so much that my brain has misremembered it. Or maybe we brought the London weather home with us and that’s why it’s been so rainy lately. Whatever the case may be, I know that if it’s going to rain I rather be in London when it does. 

This is not to say that I hate living in the states. I’m proud to be an American and all that jazz but London just has a different vibe like most foreign cities do. There are so many cultures intermingling and amazing food and so much history to be uncovered. It’s also fairly clean which is a huge difference from America’s biggest cities. To say the least, if I could be back on a plane to the U.K. this very minute I would be. I was so taken by the city, I felt safe and at home even though I was a few thousand miles away. Everything seemed to fall into place even when we got on the tube heading the wrong direction or missed a turn while walking. There was this vibe throughout the city of easygoingness. Maybe I just miss being stress-free.

Identity: Literature to Life

I was honestly intimidated when introduced to Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. Not only is it a multicultural novel set in India that focuses on the lives of those facing identity issues, but it is also set in the late 1800s. Needless to say, there are a lot of factors going into play here that triggered by ability to comprehend the novel’s plot and meaning. While beginning this novel, I was immediately struck with the relationship of the main character, Kim, and his “mentor” if you will. Kim’s mentor is a lama that is on a journey to reach enlightenment.

The reason this caught my initial attention is because of how their relationship set a basis for the journey they would take together through the novel. They began to support and encourage each other while they are both on their way to defining themselves. What I brought away from this relationship is that if you are struggling to establish and define your identity, like Kim is by trying to decide if he belongs to his English heritage or the Indian culture he was brought up in, it is important to have a figure you can turn to while going through this. Not only college students and preteen high school freshman, but human beings in general are also just trying to find a place in this world and figure out who we are. While being surrounded by political, familial, cultural, and societal influences, it becomes harder to find just how we belong to this world that is obsessed with identity. With someone there to guide you and struggle with, it makes that task even the slightest bit easier. That is what Kim made me think about because Kim himself is also surrounded with the struggle to answer the question, “Who is Kim?”

Kipling does a spectacular job with the end of this novel. Many scholars have debated if Kim finds his identity and if the lama reaches his enlightenment. For me, I find that the end as a moment of clarity for both of them. After sleeping for thirty-six hours, Kim has this moment where everything in the world clicks into place and when nothing is blurred to him anymore. In addition, the lama meditates for two days and two nights without food or water, thus reaching a point where he has  found the River of the Arrow, which is how he determines his achieving enlightenment. Because of these moments, I conclude that they both have successfully fulfilled their goal of creating their identity. Without these sincere moments of clarity, it would be hard to say that they have.

Even more importantly, I think Kipling is trying to stress the idea that it doesn’t matter if other people think they have done this. Who are we to judge if someone has created an identity for themselves? If they think they have, then that is all that matters. Kipling’s intertwining of cultures has redefined the process and expectations surrounding an individual’s quest to answer the big picture question. And let’s be honest, the more we grow up, the less we feel the need to answer “Who am I?” for someone else’s benefit.

Existential Crisis Fuel, Anyone?

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead presents a collection of existential crises for the average college student to enjoy and then promptly be consumed by. In the past I have read the play and seen the film adaptation, both of which had this effect, but a production at The Old Vic in London, starring Daniel Radcliffe as Rosencrantz and Joshua McGuire as Guildenstern, did a particularly excellent job of sending me away questioning my own existence and future, which is certainly always a good time. 

Those familiar with the work will understand the thoughts of these characters, but for those who haven't, imagine two characters, previously only featured in the background of Shakespeare's Hamlet, questioning their existence and purpose, constantly forgetting what they're doing and where they're going and who they are. That may be painfully familiar for anyone, but as a college student it becomes especially understandable. Our identities are strongly linked with the fact that we are college students and all that comes with that. Sometimes it may feel as if that's all we have. And just as the stage of the Old Vic stretches narrowly to the back, walled in by a vast sky-looking backdrop of clouds, we imagine our futures. Where are we going? How do we get there? What's the meaning of all this? As Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are on the boat that will take them to their destiny, so are we, except there was quite obviously no boarding of a literal boat or sailing over literal seas to get to literal England (well, in my case it did involve a short stop there, but luckily I had a different ending than these two characters). 

Of all the various casts who've taken on these roles, this collection seemed best suited for these characters. Of course, it takes some time to stop seeing Harry Potter on stage continuously flipping coins and to stop wondering when he's going to change out of the Shakespearean garb and cast a spell. The play itself is always a favorite of mine. As you attempt to follow every word that the pair are saying, you begin to feel as lost as them. You can hardly remember who's who as you check your program a third time to remind yourself. So read this play or watch the film or try to find a production somewhere, but be warned, you will likely walk away in the throes of an existential crisis.

Publication Sensation

With Quiddity’s reading period over and publications made, we look forward to the future; and, as the future holds for most creative writers, the idea of potential future publications is surely being tossed around by some readers. 

Personally, one of my favorite resources for finding potential publication opportunities is www.newpages.com. This site comes with a wide variety of different literary magazines nationally, all with information on what it is that they are looking for, as well as options to search for independent writing competitions, writing workshops and conferences that are looking for participants, as well as smaller publishers and university publishers that are likely to be seeking new and undiscovered writers. 

With the different search refining options available to you, you are able to look specifically for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, art, photography, cross-genre pieces, drama, screenplay, comic books, reviews, translations, audio, video, and interviews.  

Within your search results, you are given the title of the magazines, a paragraph describing what it is that they are looking for, the date that the call for submission was posted, as well as the submission deadlines.  

My suggestion is to search through the specific results, looking for anything that seems like it might fit your style. Write down submission opportunities that you think might be fitting for you. Read through the magazines a bit before you submit to them. Find magazines that some of your favorite contemporary writers have been published in/figure out what magazines you really want to be published in someday.  

Once you have some ideas of where you want to submit, read through the submission guidelines carefully before submitting. Make sure that you adhere to all of their requests. Keep track of your works that are out for publication and your works that have already been published, as first publication rights are an important thing to keep in mind. 

Submit to multiple places at once. Getting published comes with a lot of rejection. You have to accept that and be ready for it. If you get one acceptance for every twenty submissions sent out, you’re typically pretty lucky.  

If there are magazines or competitions that have the same reading/entry periods every year, put a reminder in your phone calendar or on your computer that repeats every year when the magazine opens for submissions again.