What would Hemingway have been like on the Internet?

[mnaz]

Always wondered what some of the great literary artists of the last century in particular might have been like if they had internet access and occasionally hung out on boards like this one. Maybe they would have never finished their greatest works! (Too much time peering into a screen). I imagine Hemingway as kind of an ass-- calling out various "Nancy-boy" poets here and there (like Eliot?)

Then again, maybe these folks would just go about their art, regardless of the great cyber/digital shift, and all extraneous typing be damned!

I wonder about that kind of stuff. I'm strange like that, sometimes ...

[WIREMAN]

I feel any writer would have used it as a tool and resource....hell right off the bat its like having a library at your finger tips, thats where i used to spend, my puter time....plus youd be at the book store daily and reading magazines of all sorts....damn living is the best inspiration, the puter is a magnificent tool....its hard to speak for the so called "great writers", they lived and worked on a different playing field, one in which u just had to be in the aristic firmament, being pre puter artist i do remember how important where u were was in those days, i always lived or went where creative people congregated.....nowadays everyones an artist, performer, musician, writer, film maker, dancer, it wasnt like that in the old days....the technological times we live in now allows this, it makes the making easier, is it good? thats a judgement made by the people who listen or view the work thats out there, and at that there is an ocean of it, not just little ponds scattered in ny, paris, london, LA, SF, is one big difference between now and the real old daze....as for me i dig it all, u can never have too many creative people....now making a living from it just might be harder now than it ever was then, hell when i went to the village in '78 u could get a full breakfast for 99 cents, a studio in a hotel for 60 bucks a month right at washington square....now forget it, hell a donuts 5 dollars at cafe nola in frederick....as for ernest, i'll take Jacks work over his any day, henry miller too.....brautighan....buk....ginsberg they all
were in the right places i mentioned above, now with the puter u could b on mount everest and do your thing....lol....i think u know what i mean mark...

[mnaz]

Thanks Mark. I know what you mean. Good points about opening up avenues of creativity for everyone-- versus needing to be a part of any particular local "Scene" -- and about the "library at your fingertips" aspect. That's big.

I think it's fun to imagine what some of these people would have been like online. Jack might have been big on an action poetry. Others, like Hemingway or Mailer, or even Abbey, might have gotten kicked off some of the "polite" sites-- if they were to bother at all ...

I also think I've probably already interacted with people who are "the next big writer or poet," except there are so many creative people and works out there that no one or no thing will ever make a huge, sweeping impact overall like decades past, since the beginning of the modern age ...

[Doreen Peri]

Nothing much has changed. Back then, there were other things which kept the writer's attention off of writing. At least during this cyber age, the writer's attention can be directed toward writing, despite the fact that forums like this can take the writer's attention from their real works. The key is, I think, to use the media to help a writer hone his or her works.

That said, I don't think much has changed in the fact that I don't think the "next big writer" will be female. Mostly, nobody pays much attention to the writings of females... still.

I used a male screen name once on the Baltimore site and everybody got pissed off when I told them it was me. .... THIS, after getting a huge welcoming to my work, MUCH more than I would have gotten using my real female name.

C'est la vie. C'est la guerre. We have a long way to go.

When a writer WORKS, he or (yes) she... needs to focus on what they're writing, not just playing around on the internet.

[mnaz]

btw, I agree about Jack. I was only a fringe fan until I read Dharma Bums. That chapter about climbing Matterhorn with Japhy is one of the best I've come across.

... there was something inexpressibly broken in my heart as though I'd lived before and walked this trail, under similar circum-stances with a fellow Bodhisattva, but maybe on a more important journey, I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.

I mean, he has always taken crap from critics for "not editing enough," or whatever, but much of his work can take you on a pretty amazing journey-- at least what I've read so far.

[mnaz]

Oh Doreen, I didn't see your post until now. I agree. The artistic field (and just about everything else) has been biased toward the male side. Definitely. It seems things are changing in that regard, but yeah, a long way to go.

And yes, the writer needs to FOCUS, and not get too distracted by the net . . . Like I should be doing right now!

[Doreen Peri]

I don't think anything has changed in regards to the fact that arts produced by men were then and still are much more revered in society than arts produced by women.

Nothing has changed.

This is one reason why I gave up writing "seriously" quite a while ago. Sad to give up but I did... for now.

I was a FINE writer. Now I just play on the internet with silly words. Nobody knows the difference anyway. Hah!

Hey, yes... FOCUS.. it's important. If you're writing a novel or putting together a collection of prose stories or assembling a poetry book for publication, FOCUS is important. The internet can be inspiring and fun, however, it can definitely distract from people's work. Look at all the time that's spent on the internet on FB and Twitter by people who are actually being paid to do a job, for instance. It's just a sad fact, that's all.

[Doreen Peri]

I should create a male screen name again. Just an idea. I posted as "Jon Stall" on the Poetry in Baltimore site for a few weeks, just to test my theory that the work of males is more respected than the works of females. I was RIGHT! ... I had no intention of being deceitful. I just thought it was a fun experiment and when I revealed my true identity (as I originally intended), people got pissed at me.

Oh well. Jon Stall. Hahahaha.. I loved the pun. "He" wrote some good works!

As for Hemingway... and others from an era pre-internet... I truly suspect that you're right in that they probably wouldn't have completed some of their major works because their focus would have been screwed by the "instant gratification" of comments on the internet. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I do know how distracting the internet can be.... especially for creative people who enjoy reactions from the public.

I had something important to say but I forgot what it was. Sorry. I got distracted by the internet.

[Arcadia]

interesting experiment, Doreen ... ! It would be also interesting to know the porcentaje of different géneros in the site you investigated!

Hemingway: ... well, he was also a journalist: for sure he will be hanged on internet...and he will have a lot of internet followers (lot of them female, for sure...also high risk sports fans, gun defenders & lovers and kamikaze reporters! ). He wouldn´t look very politically correct, anyway... but as he loved risks, maybe he would use it for his next novel ... Or he would be an annonimous, hacker-like online writer, each year with a different name and in a different place, who knows?

Eliot: sure he will have one of the most on-line download libraries!, he will have an hermetic and exclusive writers circle online with whom he will contact and share ocassionaly (according with the humor produced by the Engish weather.. ).

I don´t know really... just joking...!, what I do wonder sometimes is how they managed (specially the novelists) to write all those pages without computers and having a life and not using a crew of escribientes and correctores at the same time....

[mnaz]

I love it, Doreen! A great experiment..

Come to think of it, a lot of my favorite artists have been, and are, male, but not exclusively.

Honestly, my favorite poets on at least one site (AC) have been female. Are you kidding me? I Koro? And Voice? Beeonfleur? Petra? Powerful . . .

I was mostly thinking of my local (Seattle) scene when I said "things are changing in that regard." My sister, incredibly talented and skilled, who has studied art history for years, has been painting for a long time. She works in the school of realism, each line and stream and effect of light true and sharp, and sometimes the colors on her realist paintings tend toward surreal. And she has come to be taken seriously over the years; she has carved out a niche in the prime gallery scene, and she sells paintings.

But yes, the bias is still there to a large extent.

[Doreen Peri]

Congrats to your sister! That's HUGE!

BUT.. do you know WHY a lot o your favorite artists have been and still are male? (though not exclusively, I understand, but for the most part)

I'll tell you why.

You instinctively do not recognize female names. You don't give them the credit due. You scroll right past them. You automatically look for male names.

Sorry, but it's true. It's very common.

No offense or anything.

However.. WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!!! There are MANY females who are VERY talented! You are limiting yourself!

Thank you.

This has been a public service announcement.

[Doreen Peri]

.
.
.
ALASKAN FISHING NOVEL by Jon Stall

Fiction, it seems,
recreates lives in between
imperfect breaths –
plans not materialized
yet written.
As if. As if.
A repetitive
mantra.

Each novel idea,
an ingenious plot.

Hot pads to pick up
baked casserole dishes.
Conclusions are obvious.
In your face.

Fish like this ...
put out the pole in an
Alaskan ice hole.
Some body parts sink.
Some float.

Novel reviews can be
murderous. I didn't do it.
I swear.

Is there no way to relay
the distinction between
fact and fiction?

I hate tuna casserole.
Why did she serve it
to me again?

Buy the novel for more details.
Hardback version coming out soon.
You can find the paperback
on amazon, I think.

I've made a grave mistake.
I shouldn't have published this.



Jon D. Stall

[Doreen Peri]

.
.
PECULIAR QUIRKS AND BONE IMAGES
by Jon Stall


it wasn't as if i was sent
to save her from her
peculiar quirks, nor pretend

to apprehend her image
on the stage, in slight mockery,
preposterous as that may seem.

most people aren't going to question.
but i'm not most people.

and so i ask you what do you
think of her? has she asked
you to rescue her too?

hope for the best.
plan for the worst.

the first chance is not necessarily
the most advantageous.

nothing can save us but
slim hope and a prayer.
she has faith but there's no
bone in there.

[mnaz]

Okay.

Thanks, Doreen.

[Doreen Peri]

Okay.

Thanks, Doreen.

OK. You're welcome.