visit to the Sphinx

Every morning here, I get up and go down to the Pizzeria on the corner for coffee (percolator -- I'm getting used to this strange custom of stewing coffee) and French toast or hash browns or even a slice or whatever carbohydrate and cholesterol overdose is on offer.  The last couple of mornings, I've been walking the twelve blocks or so through the Projects then along the overpass over the docklands to my mentor's flat on the upper west side. It's a cold, brisk walk at what I presume are slightly subzero temperatures (around - 2 C maybe).

I've been too scared to check the weather. Today C, one of my fellow pod-members, looked up the weather and told me it was - 1 C in New York, 38 C in Alice, something like that.  The subzero experience isn't so alien to me, given that I often teach and cycle in similar temperatures on central Australian winter mornings; it's just that things usually heat up to at least 15 C by midday.  But enough of the weather.  The walk over is starkly beautiful.  I'm reminded of England -- the parks bordered by trees with denuded branches, the backdrop of housing commission-style highrises.

As I walk across this small slice of town, I ponder whether it's been worthwhile coming here.  The workshop is embedded in what is essentially my summer holiday; it's not as if I've come here just for the workshop.  I feel as though I'm getting more of a sense of New York, from staying here for an extended period of time.  But what if I've come 'all this way', as the Americans are fond of saying, halfway round the world, just to be told not to overuse the first person present tense or some such gem I could have worked out myself. A bit like a visit to the Sphinx or something. But it's always interesting to see how other people do things.  Much of the 'mini-res', as it's called, has taken up with workshopping people's projects and the directions they might take in the forthcoming semester.  It's not the close-reading, line-by-line approach that often occurs in writing workshops.  It's more about finding the 'deep subject' as opposed to the 'apparent subject' of a work,* and how this provides an organising principle for the next phase of the project (* this metaphorical distinction is supposedly the defining feature of creative non-fiction, as opposed to reportage, whose subject is merely 'yesterday' -- and certainly no longer Heath Ledger, over here anyway).  In some ways, I've found this process like therapy, and almost as draining as such, even in listening to discussions of other people's work.

Another effect of the workshop has been to refresh and re-cement my understanding of creative non-fiction as a genre, and the fact that it's the form of writing I'm seeking to engage with, rather than policy or academic writing, the forms I've more usually used in non-fiction writing.  As I've said in earlier discussions here, there is a very strong sense of genre within creative non-fiction (none of this 'add dialogue, description, character and stir' business that seems to go on in Australian renderings of CNF).

I feel that my natural inclination is towards the personal essay, whereas most of the writing in my area (i.e. on Indigenous issues) tends more towards opinion piece or reportage-style writing.  SL thinks that one of the challenges for me is not to be pulled by these more ideological renderings of Indigenous affairs (which, in any case, carry traces of UK and US social policy paradigms that have been imposed on the Australian Indigenous context) in order to discover my real subject, as it were.  In some ways, I feel that America is a good place to be working on this project, as I'm not being supervised by people who are enmeshed in Australian cultural wars, and so oddly enough might have more perspective on what I'm writing trying to write about.

CNF is a very odd area in which to be working; as I'm writing this, I'm aware of how I'll have to continue  to obscure exactly what it is that I'm doing in project reports for the institutional bean counters, so it sounds as if I might be doing something academic.  But therein lies the quandary for all creative writing at the moment: trying to make CW sound as if it could be something quantifiable by the academic bean counters.  It's a bit like trying to pass through Immigration here.  Another pause for thought I've had here is the extent to which CNF seems to be under-represented in teaching institutions.  Even here, the country that's become home to the genre, it seems that CNF has been tacked on as an afterthought or the 'fourth genre'.  Given the ascendancy of non-fiction forms such as memoir over fictional forms like the novel and short story, you'd think there'd be more a cause for teaching CNF.

Yesterday evening, I went and heard some jazz (or was it swing?) at the Lenox Lounge round the corner.  For a moment, I thought I might have been transported into a 1940s club.  The Cajun food they served there was great, possibly the best I've had. Otherwise, I've been meditating on the strange democracy of the $2 subway ride and the $2 slice: NYC might be damn expensive, but you can't fault it on those two counts.

I still feel that my life is very obscure, but never mind.

Comments

[ThirdCat]

Can I come with you next time?

[meli]

What you're doing sounds just as difficult, and much more useful, than straightforward academic stuff anyway - you're working on things people actually read. I think you're right - it should be taught more. I muse about writing non-fiction for broader audiences sometimes, but I've never thought hard about how to go about doing it.

Sounds like you're having an amazing time. I love breakfast in America, I can never quite take it seriously.

[elsewhere]

The breakfast at this pizzeria is just fantastic -- and it usually only costs about $3.

TC -- there's probably room under the adjustable IKEA-style beds at Gopher. That's if we get across the border.

[dirt]

"I love breakfast in America, I can never quite take it seriously," is a hillarious statment to me. Would love to hear more on that. Here's hoping mini-res goes well for you. Mine's next month!

[meli]

heh - it's because they really do eat bagels with cream cheese, and they eat blueberry pancakes and bacon and maple syrup at the same time! great fun.

[elsewhere]

C'mon, Meli -- they eat breakfast like that in NZ too!

[dirt]

Funny thing is, I don't eat breakfast like that. Ok, maybe once in a while, like on Christmas morning. However, I must admit that Americans have earned our reputation for gluttony... I wish we could shake it though.

[meli]

do they? i don't know any new zealanders.

and i've only ever been in america on holiday (and not that often - i'm not an expert!). it's all a big novelty for me, like being inside a film. i suppose if you're in england on holiday you'd think everyone ate sausages and eggs and black pudding (eww) every morning.

i've lived with loads of americans and they didn't eat that stuff for breakfast. but they did have a tendency to drink diet coke or dr pepper for breakfast, which i do think is weird...

[meli]

oh - just had to add - norwegians eat the best breakfast of all. brown cheese (it's sweet and kind of tastes like caramel) on bread with honey or jam. yum yum yum!!!