Killspeak

I have tried to rid myself of the guilt of being poorly cultured. It is, in my case, an unreasonable self-criticism and a drain on my bank balance: it has made me purchase books like Camus’ The Rebel (I’ve started that book a half dozen times, but never finished it) and Macunaíma. (The latter purchase was motivated by many kinds of guilt, among which were those stemming from my weakening Portuguese, my feeling of having never cultivated my Brazilian identity, and of recently having read a bunch of comics and sci-fi paperbacks—not “worthwhile literature.”)

The pressure to read canonical or acclaimed books is something I believe many of us feel, those of us educated enough to feel poorly educated. It pushes us to pursue books that may be dull and difficult to get through. We have been convinced that these books are worth the effort, if not for the ideas or experiences they give us, then for the illuminated company in which we’ll be once we finish the book.

It is hard to admit to yourself (more so to others) that this is bullshit. Slogging through the Aeneid or The Wealth of Nations will not make you a better or more authentic person. You’re likely to get as much out of the Cliff’s Notes. Your patience, schedule, and personal habits won’t allow you to become as ridiculously erudite and well read as you’d like to be. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t read it (unless it’s for a course or some such).

I’m working at this myself, trying to accept the limits of my own attention, to be realistic, to pursue books that I am interested in—and capable of finishing. So long Complete Stories of Franz Kafka. Hello Neal Stephenson.

If only it were so simple. I’ve just finished reading Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene and feel a little disappointed. It’s well written, but not exciting: I had heard and agreed with much of what he writes about well before I read it. This is something I’ve felt after reading many of the books I’ve chosen for myself lately. The characters, phrases, and ideas are already reasonably well known to me; drained of novelty, I only really enjoy the small refinements and differences that haven’t managed to escape their original source. I finish these books, but slowly and for the satisfaction of knowing—later, bragging—that, yes, I’ve read that book.

It’s this reading-to-have-read-it that I was trying to move away from in the first place. I’m still a victim of my own self-conscious book selections, though now not because of a self-hating drive to become well read, but because my selections are too familiar. To some extent, I already know much of what I’m reading, and this takes a lot of the fun out of reading it. Sure, Here Comes Everybody and Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions had some neat ideas, but they were only refinements of ideas I’d already seen or gleaned from other essays and books. I got even less from The Prestige (I’d seen the movie several times) and re-reading Ender’s Game.

The interest that motivated me to obtain and start these books faded quickly, and somewhere between the front and back cover, reading them began to feel like a chore. I did not enjoy them as I thought I would due to spoilers or redundancy. This isn’t because I’m all-knowing, but because I’ve over-applied my new standard.

(I wonder if Brottman covers this in The Solitary Vice. Her insights on reading are quite keen.)

I sound whiny and pompous, don’t I? I do. This frustration is not as bad as I make it out to be; I think that choosing for myself is still better than following some literary consensus against my own patience and curiosity. The Selfish Gene was not nearly as arduous as was my World War I-like struggle to completing The Brothers Karamazov. There were many ideas of interest in Dawkins’ book, though they seemed to have been packed in at the end. (I should have read The Extended Phenotype instead.)

I need some non-Lucas noise to throw-off my book selection methods just enough to keep me interested. Perhaps I should try reading books recommended to me by others, a compromise of my own tastes, as they perceive them, and theirs (a received opinion, a should read).

I’m keen on books. I buy a lot of them, ask for them as gifts, and when I can find the time, even read them. I also live in Canada, which means I’m quite familiar with Indigo. Most every bound stack of ink and dead trees on my shelves was purchased at one of Indigo’s mall stores, sprawl superstores, or website.

Indigo wants its customers to know it’s all about Canada. Indigo stores often cover a whole wall or stairwell with the names of Canadian authors and musicians, printed white on red. The cynic in me knows these creators are being used to put a friendly face on a private company. This patriotism isn’t hokey, but it is marketing. It may be tolerable because of the obscurity of Canadian cultural personages; Canadians that do know them are probably eager enough to have these authors recognized, so forgive Indigo for covering itself with their names. Nonetheless, Indigo is using Canadian culture-makers to sponge good will from its customers.

Increasingly, Indigo is the primary provider of Canadian cultural products. Indigo enjoys an almost total lack of competition: it’s “the closest thing to an unregulated monopoly in Canada’s private sector.” Indigo owns Chapters, Coles, Book Company, SmithBooks, and The World’s Biggest Bookstore; only a few, city-centre–type independent booksellers remain. The company also dabbles in censorship through supply: Indigo doesn’t sell Mein Kampf and kept an issue of Harper’s off its shelves because of some cartoons.

This is not a very likable company—but I’m keen on books, so, yeah, I shop at Indigo without much hesitation. I pay to be a part of their iRewards programme (and, in doing so, let them track everything that I buy). I even maintain a list of books I’d like to someday buy using their online wishlist.

This wishlist is where I keep track of interesting books and DVDs. Even if I have no strong desire to own a book, perhaps only to keep an eye out for it at the library, I’ll add it to the wishlist because it’s handy. The wishlist is the first place I’ll direct people who ask me what I’d like for my birthday, Christmas, et cetera. Even when killing time in one of Indigo’s stores, I’ll often look up my wishlist using their self-service terminals to remind myself what I’m interested in.

The wishlist is where I store my book- and DVD-related intentions, which change a couple of times a week. So it’s frustrating when I’m kept from using the wishlist by some of Indigo’s short-sighted design decisions. Far too often, I’m not allowed to add an item. Sometimes, I find that my list has been re-organized. It’s almost like having your pen run out of ink, or have someone shuffle your notes while you weren’t looking.

These may not seem like big problems. I can maintain a list with del.icio.us, right? Sure (that’s where all the books I can’t add end up) but it doesn’t have live prices, pretty cover art, easy to buy links for less technically inclined gift-givers, or the ability to be checked in the store. I would much rather Indigo improve their wishlist service, and I’m pretty sure that Indigo would like that too. After all, other than their ubiquity, it’s the only thing that really keeps me a customer, and it’s at the centre of that business.

So I’ve made a short list of simple design changes that I believe would alleviate my frustration, as well as make the wishlist better for me and consequently for Indigo.

• Let me add any book in the database. I don’t care if it is “temporarily unavailable to order.” If I can find it in your database, I should be able to wish for it. In the cases where it is unavailable, offer to notify me when it does become available. If the book is out of print, why not provide a quick list of other editions that may be available? In either case, no harm is done by letting me add the item to my list. I may never be able to buy the book from Indigo, but I will continue to use the wishlist, and that’s sure to snare me in a purchase sooner or later.

• Allow me to sort my list. Me. Indigo should not re-order the list (as it has in the past, for no good reason). Doing so is confusing and off-putting. I can’t trust Indigo to keep my list my way. Oddly, items aren’t even sorted: not by title, author, price, availability, or date added. They should be, and the criterion for sorting should be in the user’s control. It’d be useful to see, say, which DVDs on my list are the cheapest, or which I’ve added most recently.

• Let me set how much I want something. Right now, there’s no way for me to separate the books I really want from the ones I may pick up sometime. A simple three-level setting would be enough to remind myself and show others which items would make a better purchase.

• Give my wishlist a friendly URL. I want other people to use the list, but I’m not eager to share it through Indigo’s email service or to cut-and-paste its unwieldy URL. Why not something easy to remember? I could jot down http://indigo.ca/my@email.address/wishlist/ on a Post-it, or read it over the phone without much trouble. It’d make it that much easier for others to buy me something I want.

• Tidy up the little things. Indigo should put some “Add to cart” and “Check for availability at local store” buttons next to each item, instead of check-boxes and a “Add all selected items to cart” button all the way at the bottom of the page. Further, they should replace the “Most Wished For Items” column with one showing relevant recommendations (items similar to those already on my list, perhaps). While they’re at it, Indigo should fix the page’s <title>.

C’mon, Indigo: let me give you my money.

I had an opportunity to look through David Cronenberg’s Red Cars a few days ago. Donato Santeramo, a professor of mine, worked with Cronenberg on the book and was kind enough to let me browse through his copy. I spent the good part of an afternoon in his office marvelling at it, turning its pages carefully, and taking a few photographs.

Red Cars could be said to be the published screenplay for an unrealized film, an art project, or just a fancy coffee-table book. In the introduction, Cronenberg calls the book “a fusion of script and image… its own mutation,” and it’s as concise a description as possible, vague as it may be. The book is a gestalt of photographs, text, paint, metal—all tangled in semiotic support; and however well it may sit on a coffee-table, it deserves (and rewards) much more active reading than would, say, an Ansel Adams collection.

Set in the early 1960’s, the story centres on American driver Phil Hill. He hopes to become the first American World Champion, but is convinced that his sponsor, Enzo Ferrari, is undermining him and truly favours another driver, the German von Trips. His struggles with Ferrari and competition with von Trips are complicated by Ferrari’s wife, Laura, worried by her sickly bastard son Dino, and Hill’s own self-hatred and frustration. The racing season is arduous for Hill, who wins a place in the Grand Prix in the penultimate race—after von Trips is killed in an accident. Ferrari, ostensibly in respect to von Trips’ death, decides not to participate, taking the opportunity from Hill to race in the Grand Prix.

Such a summary fails to convey the colour and richness of this setting (including the famed Ferrari 156 “Shark-nose” of the title, a miniature of which is included with the book) and psychological depth of Red Cars. These come to light when reading the script and the graphic elements of the book.

The book’s rich colour photographs are striking. (I’ve not read many screenplays, but am certain that it’s rare to see one so beautiful.) The subjects of these photographs vary from the descriptive (drivers, cars, and courses) to the more abstract and metaphorical (a beaten paperback copy of Being and Nothingness makes almost as many appearances as Phil Hill). These are presented artfully. The technical perfection of the “Shark-nose” is shown through clean engineering schematics, light grey on white; its sexual influence evidenced by a series of red, close-up Polaroids. Other elements are decayed and chaotic. Photographs are blurred and torn. Some pages are splashed with paint, blood, motor oil, and even baby food; others appear to have been chewed or rubbed over hot machinery (particularly those following von Trips’ death).

Not only the images are emotive: select portions of text are set in larger, stronger type, and arranged and coloured to attract attention. These are key moments of fear or understanding, as well as smaller details expressive of the emotional texture of the story. For example: when Dino describes the changes he’s made to the engine, the text swells and reddens with his excitement. Hill is impressed, but asks why it leaks oil. Dino sees that his bed is sticky with something, and as he realizes that his bed is filling with blood, the type turns grey with dread and leaps out of the column in fear.

We see that Hill’s foot is absolutely to the floor but his car can’t keep up with its sisters.

Hill pulls into the pits, jumps out of the car and starts screaming at the mechanics. Tavoni is there. He watches in horror but doesn’t interfere.

Hill (screaming): I told you to change the engine! And you didn’t, did you. You know how I can tell? Because this engine is going to break any minute now, this engine’s valve springs have been overstressed because of the gearing change we made and they won’t last the race, and that’s why I can’t keep up with von Trips and Ginther.

At this moment Enzo Ferrari himself looms up from behind the pit wall. He wears a hat but his jacket is off revealing thick suspenders and rolled-up sleeves. Hill still does not see him.

Ferrari (angrily, to Hill): Are you certain that the problem is the valve springs?

Hill turns to face Ferrari. Despite his own very real anger and his certainty that he is right, he is immediately intimidated by this equally angry father-figure.

Ferrari: Are you certain that the problem is not really with your right foot?

Ferrari makes an exaggerated foot-pushing-on-the-gas gesture which is also a bit like a man stepping on a disgusting bug.

The script was written nearly a decade ago, but faced a variety of difficulties in being produced, not least of which were the objections of the Ferrari family and Phil Hill. Cronenberg claims that his screenplay doesn’t deal with anything not already known publicly (such as Ferrari’s bastard son, or Hill’s nervous habit of vomiting before big races), but it seems to be little comfort to the prideful family and retired race star.

The book, interesting in itself, is more so because it’s the only official piece of Red Cars, the film. To imagine the visceral experiences afforded by the text and still images brought to life with motion and sound is exciting, but at the same time disappointing. How much more thrilling would it have been to to feel the sound of the cars, of the crowd; to see beds fill with blood, engine parts churn, and faces flush with anger and success? It deserves to be made as a film.

There is a website for Red Cars that seems hastily made (“Thi site requires Flash Player 7” [sic]). There’s mention of it in the introduction, but I think it of small value and unfair to the book it’s attached to. Regardless, it’s the only easily accessible preview of the book. As much as I could recommend the book (if only to flip through for a glimpse of the photos and design), it can be difficult to find a copy: they’re in limited print, only one thousand.

Update: Santeramo was sent this entry by an acquaintance of his sometime in December. He recognized it as mine and, kind-heart that he is, gave me a copy of the book (#217).