Virtual irreality

I've been getting more and more networked, involved and entangled through Twitter, the Red Room ("where the writers are"), Zoetrope, and this blog, among other sites, in a virtual space so active -- so many messages, so many chances to connect with so many other computer users -- that it's easy to forget. There is a real world out there, and it's inhabitants -- all of us -- are in trouble. A lot of the people using these networks are barely making enough to keep their cyber connections, let alone rent, child care, health etc. Real income is dropping, steady job opportunities are disappearing, the mass of people considered redundant is ballooning, inequality is increasing as fewer secure ever greater proportions of the wealth.

But as long as all the precariously employed or unemployed have got the 'net and SMS to voice their protests virtually, they are not much of a threat to this skewed system. They're not going to answer the calls of the trade unions to march down the streets (real, physical tarmac streets in real, physical cities), because the trade unions don't represent them and because they're too busy on their computer screens. So, the professional fortunetellers (e.g., Gaggi and Narduzzi in their new book, "Full Unemployment") tell us, in post-crash society people will just docily accept our diminished lives. Without rebellion. There may be neo-Nazi outbursts here and there, but mostly, people won't know where to direct their anger other than by virtual screaming into cyberspace.

Maybe. But the skewed system is unstable. The big shift is eastward: when new technology and new high-skilled industries in everything from windmills and solar power to transportation and communications create new wealth, it looks like they'll be centered in India and China and maybe in other places that may surprise us (Brazil? Africa?). Western Europe and even Japan and the U.S. are rapidly losing their privileged positions. This is very hard for politicians and their voters in those countries to accept.

Which I think explains the irreality of political debate in Spain right now -- and much the same in the U.K., France and Germany. Not to mention Italy, where Berlusconi has diverted all attention to his dating habits, but I'm talking about places with more serious politics. In Spain, the head of the right-wing Popular Party blames the Socialist government for soaring unemployment (neglecting the role of his Party's 8 years of government in artificially pumping up the construction boom that has just collapsed), saying the Socialists don't have a clue how to solve "the crisis." He's right that the Socialists don't have the answer, no European party does, because the solution isn't even in Europe. What is ridiculous is his claim that the Popular Party does.

It's going to be rough here in Europe, and especially in Spain where rapid economic growth was premised on such a low-skilled, inefficient, and inessential industry as second homes for pensioners (whose pensions have now collapsed, and thus nobody is buying). Not just in Spain, but for all of Europe and beyond, because we're going through yet another global redistribution of wealth, like the one that got Europe started as a dominant power in the first place beginning in the 16th century. It's useless to deny it. But we can and should prepare for it, to do what we can to make sure the new power centers don't treat us as badly as our European ancestors treated them back then. To try to see that in this new redistribution of wealth, we don't reproduce the global inequality of the old system.

New pub of an older story

In other news, I've just been invited to include one of my stories in an upcoming anthology of fiction by Harvard and Yale alumni, proceeds to go to "Doctors Without Borders". It's a strange story that still surprises me. It appeared originally in the online journal milk. Here it is in that version: On a Page from Rilke.

Scribd

This is terrific!

Mar de fondo

The sea is rough today, long low waves rolling in rapidly from far to the east. This is what we call here mar de fondo, which I just now learned is the literal meaning of "ground swell" -- "an undulation of the ocean with deep rolling waves, often caused by a distant storm or earthquake" (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, my 1976 edition). Except that it is the sea, not the ocean, that is making all that noise outside my window and sending up its spume to sparkle in the sun. (The ancients knew that great Oceanus surrounds Terra the Earth, whereas the sea outside my window is the "Mediterranean," that is, surrounded by Terra.)

This morning I watched a sturdy, stubborn little boat force its way, churn by churn, to cut across those waves, the white spume rising like a burnoose over its prow, its hull buffeted left and right, port and starboard. Despite the wind and waves in opposition, it moved steadily and rapidly on its course, an unusually powerful little boat with a tall antenna and, as I saw through binoculars, a large thing on it prow that I took for another antenna, or perhap a gun -- it was too far for me tell its colors, and too obscured by its movement and the spray, to be sure that it was Guardia Civil. But whether it was military or not, and whatever its mission, I took pride in its determination, projecting myself into its tense and muscular movement, becoming that boat. Keeping my course and churning through waves and spray.

Scribd Invites Writers to Upload Work and Name Their Price - NYTimes.com

Is this really "vanity" publishing? "Vanity publishing" seems to mean publishing all by oneself, at one's own effort and expense, without any assurance from anybody else (except maybe your mother and closest friends) that what you have written is worth reading. Not what I want to do. But if this same technology is used by a publisher, that is, some organization that actually selects works it thinks it can sell, then it becomes "real" publishing. I think it's great that publishing technology becomes cheaper and easier, but we'll always feel a need for some critical filter -- editors and publishers in some form -- even if they make mistakes and can't always tell the wheat from the chaff. Because the amount of verbiage available for reading is too daunting. Scribd Invites Writers to Upload Work and Name Their Price - NYTimes.com

God Talk, Part 2 - Stanley Fish Blog - NYTimes.com

This makes a lot of sense to me. I don't use a god myself and don't feel that I need one, but if you do, and if it helps you in some way to get through the dark nights, I'm not going to tell you it doesn't exist. And even if I did, you wouldn't believe me. God Talk, Part 2 - Stanley Fish Blog - NYTimes.com

Chulapos y chulapas

We're in Madrid this week, for the festival of San Isidro Labrador. Isidro was a 12th century farmer ("labrador") who probably never imagined himself as a saint, but he must have had the reputation of being a good man because, decades after his death, when what was supposed to be his corpse was discovered remarkably well-preserved, people began attributing miracles to him. To celebrate his day (15 May) people dress up not as 12th century farmers, but as early 20th century fancypants proletarians, the guys in black-and-white checked vests and caps, the gals in multiflounced red-and-white polkadot dresses, white scarves, and a big red flower in the hair.

And you're supposed to dance the schotis (also spelled chotis or even xotis), a couple dance falsely attributed to the Scots (hence the name, derived from the German Schottisch), probably because it involves a lot of jumping up and down like a jig.

For us, the big events have been all the free street theater, a performance by a whole series of folkloric dance groups in the park of Las Vistillas, a wonderful concert by Joan Manuel Serrat, and an adaptation by our friend Antonio Rodríguez of Eric Rohmer's "Trío en mi bemol" ("Trio en E-flat"). My alter ego Baltasar Lotroyo plans to post a review on his page

Tweets for twits

Don't bother reading this unless your feeling twittery. A Night Out With - Biz Stone and Evan Williams - The Twitter Guys - NYTimes.com

This earlier piece, though, is actually interesting, about the potential of this seemingly silly system: Finding Utility in the Jumble of Tweeted Thoughts - NYTimes.com. I'm still not sure what I'm doing there, though.

In Colorful Bouts, Hint of Deeper Struggles - NYTimes.com

And here we have the dramatization of my book Hispanic Nation! Or at least of a couple of the book's themes, "identity" and "media." In Colorful Bouts, Hint of Deeper Struggles - NYTimes.com

If you click on the link lucha libre or Vampiro you get the flavor and the sound, without the strong smell of sweat. Don't miss!

Agent request

Just got my first request to see the full novel, from agent and novelist Deidre Knight. And I only sent out the query on Saturday! Now I'm going to try to think about something else, like the other book I have to write for Norton, but the excitement makes it tough.