Recording Angel

In a class taught by the novelist Tom Spanbauer called “Dangerous Writing” (a class that produced Chuck Palahniuk of Fight Club fame) he talks about a lot of the principles of writing specific to his brand of minimalism. One principle is called “Recording Angel”. It means writing without passing judgement. You’re not supposed to feed details to the reader. No abstracts, no silly adverbs. No feet long or years old.
You “unpack” the details—you describe actions and appearances in a way that will make a judgment occur in the reader’s mind. Let the details assemble themselves in the reader’s mind. You don't say, "When I was eighteen years old". You say, as the brilliant Amy Hempel does in The Harvest, "The year I began to say vahz instead of vase..."
Of course, in reality we know we can’t be a Recording Angel. We know that because of the observer effect and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that we can’t possibly record something without having an effect on it.
Besides, there’s no rule in the art of fiction that cannot be bent or broken under just the right circumstances to stunning effect. This is Recording Angel, bent and broken.

Try to pretend that this blighted webscape is a navigable space in the material world instead of a mere analog for it. Imagine that you can, as you do in the real world, walk up to people and have conversations. Imagine you can step in and out of different places, see your way through different buildings and pass over various physical boundaries. Try to picture yourself stepping through the door of a chat room, flying through the blogosphere, shopping in the eBay.
Or hooking up with old friends at a bar called Facebook.
I joined this little on-line community recently—despite my concerted efforts to avoid these sorts of webscenities going all the way back to Makeoutclub.com. I can’t say exactly what it was that prompted me to take a look; certainly I can’t pinpoint what it was that made me want to do anything other than eschew the networking site in short order.
But I did look. And I did join.
Something about turning twenty-eight, I think, made me wonder where everybody had gone. I remembered this close circle of friends from my youth. A pool of affection that had evaporated, leaving a puddle. It’s not as though I didn’t appreciate the puddle—I did! The thing is, I couldn’t figure out when or how the evaporation had happened.
One day I just found myself in a cold, rainswept parking lot in Northern B.C. with the temperature on the brink of turning the soft drizzle into stinging sleet, and I was more alone than I had been in a long time.
It wasn’t the sort of alone that makes one imagine dragging a razor over his wrists. Quite to the contrary: it was the sort of alone I’d sought most of my life. The sort of alone that let me focus on writing; on turning the wayward thoughts in my head into little jewels of fiction.
And I wasn’t entirely alone. I had (and have) a rewarding, loving relationship with a woman who has often provided a lens to focus my creative efforts. I had (and have) friends and relatives from back home that I communicate with regularly: a growing family and a support network that I’m sure would be enviable to most.
Even here in Prince George I have a handful of acquaintances that I can count on to entertain me every so often.
What I’m trying to tell you is that, despite being comparatively alone, I was left wanting very little in the way of interpersonal relationships.
But curiosity about where all those people had gone got the better of me. I couldn’t keep myself from asking the one question I thought I didn’t want to ask. That question was this: Where is everybody?
I wanted to know where all those Catholic school uniforms, stinking of weed and beer-puke, ended up. Were they exchanged for business suits? Maternity clothes? Coveralls? Did those clothes carry the heavy, acrid stench of pot and liquor as well? Were there wedding bands around fingers? Did they clink against beer bottles, or had the glass bottles been exchanged for crystal wine glasses and champagne flutes? Or plastic sippy-cups full of Kool-Aid?
So I walked through the door of Facebook Bar and Grill. I sidled up to the bar, put my money down and ordered a double scotch on the rocks and took a look around.
Of course, this is a metaphor. I’m actually sitting at my desk eating M&Ms and drinking cheap Australian Shiraz from a screw-top bottle that tastes surprisingly like an expensive Shiraz from a screw-top bottle. I’m not at a bar: I’m staring into the screen of a laptop computer.
My wine glass is plastic. The music on the stereo is a Polish hardcore punk band called Post Regiment.
And as I go from table to table I’m not actually sitting down with my old friends. I’m sitting down with carefully chosen web avatars of them. And I don’t learn about their lives so much from conversation as from deciphering digital displays of their lives.
And what have I learned?
Diaspora!
There are two kinds of diaspora. There is the physical kind, the kind where a people disperse and move in different directions over a real, material landscape. The other kind of diaspora is mental. This involves a change of direction in a person’s mindset. It’s often natural but sometimes shocking when you walk in on the result rather than observing it as it happens.
What I’m most glad to see is that the damage we’d done to each other doesn’t seem to have been permanent. The bruises left by knuckles have healed. The welts raised on our psyches have quietly disappeared. The psychological ramifications of hands gliding over naked skin seem to have been positive—if they were anything at all. The regret about punches not thrown, psychological damage not inflicted and sex not had—for myself anyway—is very small and mostly insignificant.
What I’ve learned is that Monika is taking her masters in forestry in B.C. Jen is a pastry chef in Jasper Alberta. Shawn got married. Rena is poised to take over her parent's restaurant in Ridgetown and likes going to Pistons games. Geri-Lynn is a mother in Manitoba. Regine had a kid, got married and pictures of her give the impression of full-on mommy-hood and financial well-to-do-ness. Stephanie got married, moved to London and had two babies. Ryan B. got married and seems to take his Facebook account seriously as a means of disseminating his sociopolitical views. Andrew got buff and lives in Toronto. Mars got married to Shawn and they had two kids. She runs her own day care. April got married and is performing at the Elephant’s Nest this Tuesday. I'm told Sean ran around the continent, he may have gotten married and divorced and ended up back where he started. Craig is a University Administrator on the East Coast. Eoin is in Ottawa. Dawn moved to Ridgetown and had a baby. Brock is a Graphic Designer in London. Ryan S. lives in Belle River. He got engaged and works a metal stamping plant. Michelle and Aaron hooked up and live together.
And what about me? What about Dave? Dave lives in Prince George, British Columbia. He sometimes calls himself J. D. Buston and spends his time making up stories for people who look at the world and need to laugh or cry a little. To say to them: “It’s okay, you’re not alone.”
Good for them!
Good for me!
Good for us!
Diaspora!
Who knows what I’ll find out next?