3 Cheers for New Zealand

I don't have much to say about this, just watch the video. When the Parliament starts singing at the end it really made my eyes well up - that would never happen in this country.

Congratulations New Zealand, may many other countries follow your lead.

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas is a very recent release, which I saw last weekend; a collaborative effort by the Wachowski siblings (Lana and Andy) and Tom Tykwer. The Wachowski siblings famously gave us the Matrix trilogy (shot in Australia) and Twyker gave us Run Zola Run (made in Germany) a brilliant film that played with different media (like anime) and time (not unlike Ground Hog Day, only different). Cloud Atlas was shot in Scotland, Germany and Majorca, and, considering all its different scenarios shot with conscientious realism, it must have been very expensive.

It has to be said straight away that this film, with its 6 overlapping stories, all in different periods, and only tenuous connections, won’t appeal to everyone, yet I liked it a lot. A bloke sitting a couple of seats away from me kept looking at his iphone; a sure indication of boredom. I suspect the only thing that kept him in his seat (other than the outlay for his ticket) were the action scenes and any storyline was irrelevant to his need for entertainment. Without actually talking to him, this may be a harsh judgement, but I suspect he simply gave up trying to keep track of the 6 interlocking stories; so, for many, this may be a flawed film. Even David Stratton (arguably, Australia’s most respected film reviewer) who gave it 3.5 stars (his co-host, Margaret Pomeranz, gave it 4) said he’d like to see it again.

I think what saved the film, for me, was that all 6 stories were good stories in their own right and they all followed the classic narrative arc of setup, conflict and resolution. I thought the editing between stories (especially at the beginning) was too frequent, but that’s a personal prejudice. Once I got past the setup for each story (some took longer than others) I had no trouble following them. I made no attempt to follow any links between them (more on that below) and they all had the same theme, which was human rights and oppression, and how it hasn’t changed historically, except in its focus, and how it will continue into the future of our evolutionary development.

One story was set in the 19^th Century, 2 in the 20^th Century, 1 in the present, and 2 in the future. At almost 3 hours duration each story really only took up half an hour, therefore it didn’t drag, at least for me. As a writer I like to have 2 or 3 subplots happening at once – that’s how I write – so multiple storylines are not a problem in themselves. The popular series, Game of Thrones, has multiple storylines of 4 or more, yet I’ve never heard anyone say it was too difficult to follow.

Only one character, as far as I could tell, traversed 2 of the stories (in the 20^th Century) and there was a very clever link between the 2 future stories, which was only revealed towards the end, and I won’t give it away, except to say (spoiler alert) that it reveals how a mortal from the past can be seen as Godlike in the future. In other words, they gain an iconic status as a result of their personal sacrifice. I thought this was the singularly most germane insight of the entire movie.

To call it ambitious is an understatement. Even within individual stories, they play with time, using every storytelling device that film allows, with flashbacks, flash-forwards and voiceovers. At least once, I observed that the voiceover from one story continued into another story; to emphasise a common theme rather than any continuity in content. The trailer emphasises the common thread in a mystical sense, yet, for me, that is not what the movie is about. I thought the 2 future stories were the most powerful, especially the near-future one. My advice to anyone viewing this is just go with the flow; don’t try to analyse it while you’re watching it but just treat each story on its merit.

Correlation of gun deaths to gun numbers world wide

Just over a week ago I got into a discussion with someone on Facebook (no names, no pack drill) about gun control in the USA, or lack of it. My interlocutor was an obviously intelligent bloke and claimed his argument was objective and emotion-free, based on mathematics. To this end he produced a graph demonstrating that there was no correlation between gun murders (homicides) and gun ownership across the 50 states of America. After the debate I found another graph that disputes his findings, but that’s not what my argument is about.

In truth, I think he was just as emotive about this issue as me, perhaps more so, but believed he could take refuge in the safe haven of statistical analysis. In fact, he made the extraordinary statement (from my perspective) that violence in the US is ‘cultural ….but there's no evidence it has anything to do with guns’. In other words, he acknowledges that America is a violent country but it has ‘nothing to do with guns’, because there is no correlation between gun ownership and homicides between states. The point I want to make is that one can make an illogical non-syllogism if one can back it up with statistics. He effectively argued that yes, there are a lot of gun-related deaths in America (over 10 per 100k of people; arguably the highest in the developed world) and America has a lot of guns (9 for every 10 people; the absolute highest apparently) but there is no connection between the 2 stats.

So I pulled out an old psychology text book on statistics and did some analysis of my own. There is a well-worn formula called the Pearson Correlation that exploits standard deviation of both sets of data and delivers a figure between -1 and +1 that is easy to interpret. 1 is obviously a perfect correlation and 0 is no correlation, with -1 an inverse correlation.

Using data on Wikipedia I did a correlation for all 74 countries that Wiki lists for total firearm-related death rate (the list of gun numbers is considerably longer). The Pearson Correlation was -0.07, which is marginally negative and seems to support my Facebook antagonist. But a handful of countries have huge death rates in the 30s and 40s per 100k, which wipes out any correlation that the majority may reveal.

So if one removes all African countries, all Central and South American countries, Caribbean countries and all Middle Eastern countries (except Israel) we are left with all of Europe (both West and East, where we have figures) and most of Asia (except Philippines; refer below) and North America; 46 countries out of the 74. Now we get a Pearson’s Correlation of 0.83 which is quite high. However, if one adds just one anomalous country like the Philippines, which has a gun death rate of 9.5 (almost the same as US) but with gun ownership less than 5 per 100 people (20% of US gun ownership) the correlation drops to 0.6, a considerable difference made by one country out of 47. On the other hand, if one drops the US from the list, the correlation also drops to 0.67, so it’s a significant weighty statistic in its own right.

If one just takes England, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and United States (countries most culturally similar to the US) one gets a Pearson’s Correlation of 0.95 (almost exact). But taking US out of this smaller list of 6 English-speaking countries the correlation only drops to 0.86, which suggests that the US is not an anomaly in the same way that the Philippines is.

So much for statistics. Mass shootings that grab global media headlines, apparently make up only 1% of gun-related deaths in the US (according to my Facebook opponent) therefore from a statistical point of view they shouldn’t influence the debate at all, but that’s just nonsense. The point is that they should be 0% as they tend to be in other developed countries. The obvious question to ask is what is the difference between the US and the other handful of similar countries (like England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) that provide the strongest correlation? I would suggest it’s gun control. If the US has the largest number of guns per people of anywhere in the world and the highest gun-death rate in the Western world, then it’s screaming out for gun control.

I argued on Facebook that gun-deaths in America drive up gun ownership, indicated by the fact that there is a spike in gun purchases following mass shootings. America appears to have the most liberal gun laws in the developed world – a legacy of the NRA, one of the strongest political lobbies in America. It’s unlikely that Obama will be able to do any more than previous administrations, despite his history-challenging rhetoric. Every tragic shooting reopens this debate, but nothing changes, and every incident only reinforces the belief held by many Americans that they need to be armed.

Islamophobia

Tonight, as I write this, Dutch politician and outspoken critic of Muslim immigration into all Western societies, Geert Wilders, is speaking somewhere in Melbourne (where I live) on this very subject.

He’s in Australia on invitation from a fringe organization, Q Society, who are openly anti-Muslim. Not surprisingly, they had trouble finding venues, and their meetings will be picketed by protesters, including the one held tonight as already witnessed on the news.

I’ve seen all this before, more than once, where some foreign group is going to overwhelm our cultural heritage and supplant our identity or the identity of our children. This is pretty much the rhetoric of Wilders, specifically aimed at Muslims, yet I heard the same rhetoric aimed at ‘Wogs’ (Italians and Greeks) when I was growing up, then Asians, especially refugees from Vietnam, and now it’s Muslims, as they are the predominant refugee group seeking asylum in Australia.

Xenophobia has always been alive and well in this country, as it is all over the world, yet we pride ourselves on our multiculturalism. Wilders, and the people who support him, equates multiculturalism with cultural relativism, therefore it is untenable. This is a gross simplification and misrepresentation, and is certainly not what most people see or experience who live in Australia.

Wilders has come here to warn us that we live in a delusion and that we will become an Islamic totalitarian state simply by maintaining a tolerant and open attitude towards Muslims. Wilders believes strongly that all Muslims are trapped already in this state and we will be forced to follow. Obviously, Wilders hasn’t met the Muslims that I know and he’s never had a conversation with Waleed Aly.

Wilders’ bonhomie claim to a ‘friend’ and kindred spirit in Australian politics is Cory Bernadi, who was recently forced to resign his front-bench post in Federal politics as a result of him comparing gay marriage to bestiality. Personally, I’m not surprised that Islamophobia and homophobia should produce common bedfellows. They are both based on paranoia, intolerance and a desire to freeze our society in aspic.

My observation from witnessing 3 generations of immigrants is that it’s the children who determine the result. They experience a range of cultures that sometimes creates conflict with their parents, but they’re the ones who seize the opportunity of education, social interaction and workforce experience. At the end of the day, they have to reconcile their cultural heritage with the society they call home, and, generally, they seem to manage quite well.

I find it interesting that Wilders repeatedly points out our Judea-Christian heritage being at odds with Islam, yet we are a secular society, and its strength is not to politicise religion; something other societies struggle with.

Prisoner X

The original story of this, aired last Tuesday, 12 Feb. 2013, is very disturbing to say the least. His imprisonment was so sensitive and security-averse for Israel that a gag order was put on all media in the strongest terms. The impression one gets is that the Israelis wanted him to disappear completely, and then, almost conveniently, one might say, he suicided in circumstances where suicide should be impossible. This all occurred in 2010.

A later story in the same week (Thursday) gives a slightly different story where DFAT  (Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade for Australia) apparently did know of his imprisonment and his family had been informed, and he had access to legal counsel.

On the same night (Thursday) we have an interview with a Melbourne-based foreign correspondent, who apparently spoke to Ben Zygier (believed to be prisoner X) prior to his imprisonment.

This entire story is an embarrassment to Israel, and must surely strain relations between Australia and Israel, not least because it is now apparent that Israel is recruiting Australians on Australian passports to visit countries, that Israeli citizens can’t enter, for espionage purposes.

Addendum 1: If nothing else, this story reveals the necessary self-regulating role that journalism plays in a democracy. Apparently, Israel still maintained a gag order on their own media even after this was aired on Australian TV, but now they can't ignore it.

Addendum 2 (11 May 2013): There is an update to this story, which is both instructive and tragic.

Writing well; an art easily misconstrued

A friend of mine lent me a book, How to Write a Sentence; and how to read one by Stanley Fish, which is a New York Times bestseller according to its cover. It’s not a lengthy book and it’s easy to read, but I’m unsure of its intended audience because I don’t believe it’s me. And I’m a writer, albeit not a very successful one.

Fisher is a 'professor of law at Florida International University' with an impressive curriculum vitae in teaching at tertiary level. His deconstruction of the humble sentence reminds me of why I’m not a teacher; though, at the risk of sounding self-indulgent, I think I make a good teacher, with the caveat that the quality of my teaching seems to be more dependent on the quality of my students than myself.

I recently watched a biopic on virtuoso Dutch violinist, Janine Jensen, which I considered so good I’ve seen it twice. At one point she’s asked why she doesn’t give master classes. Given her schedule (200 concert performances in 1 year) she might have said lack of time, but one of her close friends said she won’t teach because it would require her to analyse her own method; deconstruct her technique. A lot of artists would empathise with her, including me, yet I have taught writing. The point is that I never analyse how I write sentences and, to be frank, Fish’s book doesn’t inspire me to.

The human brain has the remarkable ability to delegate tasks, that we perform routinely, to the subconscious level, so we can use our higher cognitive facilities for higher cognitive tasks. We do this with motor tasks as well, which is why we can walk and talk at the same time. Other animals can also do this, but they don’t do it at the cognitive level like we do. Young animals play in order to hone the motor skills they need in adulthood to survive, whether they be predators or prey. Humans do it with language amongst other things. And creating sentences is one of those things that the brain delegates so that when we are having a conversation they seem to come ready-made, pre-constructed for delivery as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

Elite performers like professional sportspeople and musicians (like Jensen mentioned above) are so good at what they do that their brain delegates tasks that we can’t even do, which is why they dazzle us with their brilliance. When it comes to writing fiction, the same level of delegation applies. The first hurdle in writing fiction is to create characters, and, in fact, when I taught creative writing the first lesson I gave was to give an exercise in creating character. This is something that most people can’t do, even though they can write coherently, yet writers create characters in their sleep, sometimes literally. In other words, creating characters becomes second-nature, something they do without really thinking about it too much. Characters come into their head, complete with dialogue, temperaments and attitudes, in the same way that melodies come into the heads of tunesmiths.

Fish gives us two new terms, “hypotaxis” and “parataxis”, both Greek words; technical terms for the 2 main sentence ‘styles’ that he discusses at length: ‘the subordinate style’ and ‘the additive style’ respectively. To be fair to Fish, he acknowledges, after referencing them once, that we will probably never use them again. By ‘style’ Fish means structure, and the subordinate style is effectively a main clause with subordinate clauses added on. The best example he takes from Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963), where King delivers a train of clauses describing the oppression of his people at that time, ending with a succinct final clause that sums it all up: “…then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” The entire sentence is some 300 words long, yet it’s a rhetorical tour-de-force.

The additive style is where clauses are strung together almost dissociatively and the examples he gives seem to ramble a bit, which I suspect was a deliberate device by their authors to create the impression of a disjointed mind. Then he gets to Hemingway, whom I think was a master. I believe Hemingway was such a significant influence on 20^th Century writing that it’s worth quoting Fish at length:

Hence his famous pieces of advice to writers: use short sentences, write clearly, use simple Anglo-Saxon words, don’t overwrite, avoid adjectives and leave yourself out of it. The result was a style that has been described as realistic, hardboiled, spare, unadorned, minimalist, and lapidary. The last two words are particularly apt: a lapidary style is polished and cut to the point of transparency. It doesn’t seem to be doing much. It does not demand that attention be paid to it. It aspires to a self-effacement that allows the object to shine through as a master stonecutter allows the beauty of the stone to shine through by paring away layers of it.

I read somewhere last year, a reviewer saying that Hemingway changed the way we write, and I agree. I had just read Islands in the Stream, a loosely connected trilogy, published after his death, concerning the exploits of an artist living in Cuba and performing undercover operations in the War. What struck me was how he put you there, and you felt like you had experienced what the protagonist had experienced, some of which was emotionally gut-wrenching. As I said, Hemingway was a master.

So there are places in Fish’s tome where our minds meet and concur. In other places he suggests exercises in creating better sentences, which I neither promote nor condemn. If a writer is an artist then they ‘feel’ their sentences without analysing them or dissecting them. A writer of fiction should write as if they are the first person to read their words, as if they were actually written by someone else. I know that doesn’t make sense but anyone who has done it knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Reading Fish’s deconstruction of style (as opposed to content) prompted me to re-read the opening page of my novel, which stands pretty much as when I first wrote it, and they were also the first words of that story I put down. What I notice is that it has an edginess and urgency that reflects the content itself. In fiction you have to create a mood; there is always an emotional message; but you have to create it in a way that the reader is unaware of it, except subliminally. I used to tell my class that good writing is transparent: readers don’t notice good writing; they only notice bad writing. The reader should be so engaged by the character and the story that the writing becomes subliminal. The medium of the novel is the reader’s imagination, not the words on the page. The words are like notes on a music score, which, without an instrument to play them, are lifeless. In the case of a novel, the instrument is the reader’s imagination.

Before Hemingway, writers used long-winded descriptions, though I think film has had a lot to do with their progressive extinction. But Hemingway, I believe, showed us how to create a scene without belabouring it and without ‘adornment’, as Fish describes above.

I’ve said on this blog before, that description is the part of a novel that readers will skip over to get on with the story. So, not surprisingly, I provide as little description as possible, and always via the protagonist or another character, but just enough so the reader can create their own images subconsciously, which they do so well that I’ve had people congratulate me on how good my descriptions are. “I could see everything,” they say. Yes, because you created it yourself.