yépez - on character 2004

7/24/2019 Yépez - On Character 2004

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/yepez-on-character-2004 1/9

Biting he

Error

Writers

Explore

arrative

Editedby

Mary Burger

RobertGliick

Cami l le

Ro y

Gai lScott

Coach

House Books



copinight

@

zoo4,the

authors

first

edition

The editors of Biting the Error owe a debt of gratitude to the poetry

Center

at

San Francisco

State

University

for

housing

our

web

ournal,

Narrativi\t,

from

which

much

of this

anthology

is

derived;

to

Alana

wilcox

at

coach

House

Books

or

her vision,

hard

work

and patience;

to Michelle

Rollman

for

lending

us

the drawing

on

page

3o3;

andto

Chris

Johanson

or

iending

us a

ovely

mage

for

our cover.

LIBRARY

AND

ARCHIVIS

CANADA

CATAIOGUING

IN

PUBIICATION

Biting

the

error

: writers

explore

narrative

/

edited

by

Mary

Burger

...

[et

al.].

rsBN

r-55245-r42-g

r.

Narrative

(Rhetoric)

I.

Burger,

Mary,

ry63-

Contents

Introduction

Approximate:

ast o Present

r/

Kathy Acker

I

The Killers 14

Gail Scott

I

The

Virgin

Denotes 19

Robert Gliick

I

Long Note

on

New Narrative

25

Lydia

Davis

I

Form

as

Response o Doubt

)5

Aaron Shurin

I

Narrativity

38

ReneeGladman

I

The

Person n the World

46

Dislocation

Pamela Lu

lThe

Life of

the

Unknown

50

Rob

Halpern

I

Committing the Fault

jS

X. I. Selene

I

In Defenceof Forgetfulness

63

NathalieStephens EchoesEnough ofE&oes of Enough of Me 67

My

Other

Self

Chris

Kraus

I

Hunger

- Technology Emotion

74

Anne Stone

I

Objective

Hazard

78

Douglas

A.

Marlin

lThe

Day

Outlying 85

Doug Rice

|

'Delirious,

Always Becoming' 88

Kevin Killian

I

Poison gz

Methods

MagdalenaZurawski

I

Why Poetry Failed Me and What Pr ose

s

TrF^g to Do for My Writing and Me ro4

feffDerksen

|

Text'

and

the

Site

ofWriting ro8

Corey

Frost

I

On Performance,

Narrative,

Mnemotechnique,

Glue

and

Solvent n3

Nicole Markotii

I

Widows and Orphans

rr9

Christian

Bdk

I

A

Few Thoughts

on Beautiful Thinking rz5

SteveMcCaffery

|

Notes on Narrativity

rz8

The Novel

Carla

Harryman

I

How

I

Wrote

Gordener

of

Sfars,a Novel r32

Lynne

Tillman

lTelling

Tales

$9

Nicole Brossard

I

Soft Links r48

vm4z5.a58

oo4 8o9'.923 c2oo4-9o5555-o



Eileen

Myles

I

Long and Social

r4g

Leslie

Scalapino

Narrating r1z

Resistance

heriberto

y6pezl

on

character

r58

Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite

I

Last Exit to Victoria (Five Mins. of

MurderAlonewith Wiggerand'Bloodland') 69

Camille

Roy

I

Experimentalism r74

Mary

Burger

I

All

New

YorkerStories r8o

Taylor Brady

I

Narrative

Occupation

and

Uneven

Enclosure r84

A Story

s

a Storage

Bruce

Boone

I

Holilwood Celluloid Nuke

Madness r94

Derek McCormack

I

The Monster Comic zor

Laura

Moriarty

I

Incidents

ofTime Travel

zo5

TheSentence

LisaRobertson

I

Lucite (a didactic) zr4

Betsy

Andrews

I

The

Real Story of

'O'

z16

Kathy

Lou Schultz

I

Proceed

Queerly:

The

Sentence

as

Compositional

Unit z2o

Shiver

Dodie

Bellamy

I

Low Culrure zz6

D.

L. Aivarez

I

Nostalgic

48

Robin

Tremblay-McGaw

I

Narrative

Transfiguration 24r

The Tell-Tale

Hearl Dennis

Cooper

nterviewed

by Robert Gliick 245

fhe Buzz

of Al ternateMeanings

Laird

Hunt

I

The Avenue

z58

Michael du

Piessis

I

Narrative as Determinarion

ofthe Future

Anterior

z6 z

kari edlvards

I

a narrative

ofresistance

266

Aja Couchois Duncan

I

What StoryWill LoveYou Like Do)

269

Daphne

Marlatt

I

what is the story here) 274

Paul VanDeCarr

I

Hey, Narrativity 277

The

Contributors z8c)



on

character

heriberto dpez

experimentalism

means

'identity

in

crisis.' events

that

made

'me,

more -

an awareness

was

no longer

my

self, one-self.luce

rigaray,

on

the one

hand,

wrote that

reality

s always

wo.lbidentity

then]. and

on

the otherhand, ao zu reminds us that where there's wo soon here's

three

-

like

couples,

which

in reality

are,

at least,

threesomes.

he

destruction

he couple

s -

was

alreadyhere.

and now:

history:

'in

general

he mexican

body

s

suffering

"changes."

meaning:

a second

drama

of hybridization.

a

secondconquest.

a new

corpus.'

the daynafta wasput into practice(fanuary r,1994) was he day post-

modern

mexican

history

began.

not

only becauseglobalization

had

officially

started,

but because

an

indian

guerrilla

-

Iong in

training

-

appeared.

he post-national

and

'profound

mexico'

(bonfil

batalla)

clashed.

o hegelian

syrrthesishere,

no fuckin

g aufueben

ifanlthing

is

taught

by

mexican

history,

beyond any kierkegaardian

eport,

t

is

that

when

the

one and

he

other

collide, not

even

either/or is

a choice:

no

synthesis,

no coexistence,

either

ofthe two are going

to

survive

n

their

original

state.

[saint]

max

stirner said

t best:

is all

and what

ali

destroys.

ll.

first the indian

guerrillas

were

denounced

as

central

american

marx-

ists

('they

couldn't

be

mexicans'),

and'transgresores

elaley,

law

rans-

gressors)

as

the

infamous pro-state

nightly

news

anchorman

jacobo

zabludowslcy

alled hem. the

main

visual

characteristic

fthe

zapatis-

tas was

heir

black p

asamontqf,as.

'they

must

be hiding

something.,)

they

used heir

masks

o not

be recognized

by he

government,

but

also

because

masks

have

a strong

power

in

mexican popular

culture:

the

power

of transformation,

social

change

and

new

personal

identity.

masks

have

always played

this role

in

our culture,

as in many

other

places

n

the world.

there is

a long

tradition

of using

masks in

pre-

colombian

cultures,

rom ritual to warmasks anddiseuises. hat's also

r58

why

we have adapted

so

well

to halloween.

culture

and

body,

how

we

affect

he

other

and

how

we are

affected

by

them'

in

another

arena,

masks

are

related

n

mexico

to superhero

igures.

wrestlers

use masks,

and

at one

point

the

movies

used

real

wrestlers

acting

as superheroes,

in

bizarre

plots

where

they

would

fight

vampires,

gangsters

or

extraterrestrials

sometimes

at

he same

ime)

wrestlers

ike el santo,

blue

demon

or

mil

miscaras

became

household

names,

ust

ike superman

or

spiderman

n the

united

states'

he

mask

has continued

to function

to both

hide

identity

and

build

a

new

iden'

ti f

through

a

acial

disguise,

s shown

by

the social

activist

uperbar-

rio in

mexico

city,

who

has used

a mask

to

attract

attention

or

popu-

1arcauses

ince

he

ate eighties.

as he apparition

ofthe

zapatistas

as made

many

ofus

aware,

mexi-

can

identities

have

been

undergoing

a dramatic

process

of

life and

death.

he zapatistas

were using

experimental

strategies

o

represent

that

phenomena.

he

zapatista

mask

has

many

functions:

for example'

to emphasize

he collectivity

of

the

movement

-

from

its

leader

o the

last soldier. t paradoxicallymakesus awareofwho is behind themask

while

at

he

same

ime

forces

us to

not

see

he

ndians

according

o

our

long-standing

stereot)?es

passivity,

oss

of

identity,

etc'

- with

the

implication

that

they

are

not

going

to

remove

their

masks

untj'l

we

learn to

see

heir true

faces.

the zapatistas

nnounced

he

renewal

of

mexican

character.

writing

narrative

n our

zapatista

ountry

means

o accept

hat

our

traditional

face

and

identity

have

been

modified.

no

more

fixed

personalities

or

long-standing

structures.

who

are

we and

how

do

we represent

ourselves,

ow do

we narrate

our

being

and

non-being,

our

selves

nd

otherness;

how

do

we build

the text

s now

a

question

of

how

are

we

lot"*,o

survive.

whose

character?

lways

some

I

body

else.

character

s

always

us'-

in

a way

t's

never

ust'us.'

character

can

be

dentified

(partialiy)

with

the

writer.

each

character

has

Some

characteristics

secret

or announced)

that

the

writer

has

-

i.e,,

characteristics

lhe

supposes

are

hers

or his'

but are

not.

characters

re

part

ofthe

writer's

life,

but are

never

him

or

her,

nor

any

person

in

particular;

they

cannot

be

separated'

nor

are

they

antasy.

haracters

re

he

author's

psychical

amily,

society's

rail

J

o

l.

q

f

o

o.

o

N

159



(.)

c

G

.h

O

d.

of doppelgingers

in its course

through

time. imagination

cannot

happen. antasy

s mpossible.

eaiity

pollutes

everything.

magination

cannot

escape ompletely

rom

the

here and now

of material/histori-

cal/bodily

circumstance.

fiction'wanted

to

escape

rom

history

-

the

possibility

of

a

realm

made

exclusiveiy

of

fantasy

a critical llusion

it

has

alwayspursued,

only o

eave

evidence ffailed

fugitives.

who's

he

characterl

no

one, but

many.

anyone's

double. ncluding,

of course,

the other side, he so-calied eaders,somebodyelse oo (many).char-

acters

operate n

the field

of indeterminacy,

of multiplicity.

(i hate

names.

names

are

in

favour

of

being-just-one.)

writing a

character

(packages)

e

do not respond

o the

question

who

am i ?

but to this the

interrogation

who

else nt i?

a question

hat

cannot

be

responded

o. a

character,

a

failed

attempt to

know

ourselves.

'it

helps my

mother was

a prostitute.

she kept

nside of

her too

many

i didn'tknowwho

myfather reallywas.

never

sure enough,

and neither

her, him or i wanted o find out. dentity means= too rLeny ame nside

I

name

s not

necessary.'

i write

fiction

while

i hear

music.

i've always

been

under the impres-

sion

that a

novel's

characters

hould be volatile

entities. would

iike

for

characters

o be

entities whom

i pass

by, reading,

and

don't recog-

nize. a

movement

n the

page,

strange vent,

nebulous

vent,

what was

it?

maybe

a character.

not

bodies

but waves.

find in

radiohead

what

deleuze found

in

bacon: he vision of

bodieswho

are

he subject

of

forces

hat

determine

their

form,

whose

eatures

are

deformed

by

he

effect hose orces

have

in

their

flesh

weseewtobe

clouds

rqwn

away

by hewind,

stipped, goes

a

caifanes

song,

a rock group

from

the nineties whose

name was

ater

changed

o

jaguares

after

he

band eader

ost his voice

according

o

a riend

his voice

was ost

because

e

discovered oo

many

secrets. his

didn't

delight

he gods,

so

hey u rned his

voice

nto a

ridiculous

event.

when

i

write

a character t

must

feel o

me as f

composed

of

bubble

gum.

a

character

s not

a stable

hing.

a

plasma.

characters

should

always

melt.

r6 o

the

nstability

look

for in

characters

an even

be

a genealogicai

race

they've

eft.

kristeva

reminds us

that

in twelfth-century

ove songs

probablymistranslated

by

pound

-

the

loved

one

was not a

clearchar-

acter,

was

aimost never described,

and

'her'

could

refer

both

to the

woman and

the

song

tself. (homer

too never

described

helen but

she

incited a

war anyvvay,

he passions

she

was

used for') but

then

(back

o

kristeva)

music

was

ost

in

poetry, and

some

ime

later

prose

ook

the

placeofverse and he troubadour becameanovelist - masculinechar-

acters

who

not

only

were

unwilling

to

celebrate

with

ioy

the

distance

between themselves

and

their

lovers

(i'e., reference)

but

also

were

under

the

speli of

the spirit-of-conquest-of-the-other

nstead

of seduc-

tion-by-it.

n this

way cervantes'

and swift's

satires

on

woman, on

love,

became

possibie.

he

novel

was

born,

and

n

it,

characters,

isible ones,

'individuals,'

not

the

ghosts of

the

past, hose

volatiie entities

where

object

and

subiect

were undistinguishable

in

a way adorno

never

imagined.

the character

became

clear,

ts

limits and

borders

deter-

mined, and

their

names,

personalities,

everything

n them

was made

recognizable,

n

order

for them

to become

properry

of someone

-

another character, hemselves, he author, the reader, he book, capi-

talism

itself.

jealousy

makes

the

other

recognizable,

'predictable,'

imaginable.

ealousy

draws

a'truth'

soon

o be

discovered,

a

property

we can

have

hanks to

a mental

map,

a system of

control

on

the

body

ofthe

other.

i

write fiction

while

i hear music

so

don't

forget

this

is what'char-

acters'

became,

ut not

how

they

structuraily

mustbe'

in the

past,char-

actersat

east

n one

form of

discourse

were

plasmatic,

even

nvisible,

ghostiy,

not solid;

in

fact, characters

had

no other

architecture

han

that of

mystical

music.

not a

place.but

how

light and

darkness

happen

n that

placeor maybe

:

r"t".

placeelse.

an end

o

the novel?

o

require

an end

he novel

would

need

o be a

ixed

entity,

something

whose

life

depended

on

itself,

but

we

suspect

he

novel

s part of

a decadence

f which

it

is not

yet

he

owest

point.

that's

5-

6

:.

o

(}.

6

N

r6 r



o

c

N

.q

o

why

ka{ka

is

always

a

symbol

of the history

ofthe novel,

a

history

that

can never

end, because

t's

a process

hat

can

only be left

unfinished

in

its

'novel'

stage

/

a

posthumous

attempt

to

understand

what the

complete

history

of the

novel

might

have been.

he

novel

has already

changed,

here's

now

no

way

to

terminate t

or to write

it again.

time

to look

at what

we've

done as writers

serving

optimistic

politics.

making

the

reader

a

co-producer,

we

declared

we were

empowering

him

or her.

the truth

was

hat

everphing

became

work,

even

eisure,

play

or

silence.

n

our era

even

words

work,

(barrett

watten).

worka-

holism.

writing

as the

metaphysical

shop window

was

proof

that

language

was

also

abour,

everithing

was

working

- well.

the

reader

as

co-producer

means

him/her

as

slave.

we

(writers

and

readers)

made

the

'reader'

believe

slhe

had to

be

active

oo, because

f

slhe

was not

slhe was

passive.'

hat

myth.

even

working

when

he dreams

or reads.

that's

why

i like

books hat don't work.

the

storJteller

creates,

produces.'that's

what

slhe s

supposed

o do.

slhe

follows

maker

(godlproducer).

his is very

obvious.

but slhe

can

follow

another

path:

disappearance.

nstead

of making

something

appear

rom

nothingness

(sic),

slhe can

make

everything

disappear

into

nothingness.

(one s

as

mpossible

as

he other.

so, why

notl)

the

storyteiler

could play

the

role

ofanti-god,

a not-producer.

sabotage.

consumer

of everything.

et the

universe grow

and

expand,, roduce;Iet

the

storyteller

decrease

he world.

writing

pursuing

the

achievement

of

nothing,

to

stop working

as soon

as t

begins.

fvoice

eads

o

religion.

there,

where

voice

appears,

god

s possible,

a

god

is

unavoidable.

he

author

reads,and

co-produces

ommunity

-

he or

she s near

being

a priest,

even

when

she or

he abhors

his role,

as we

do,

as

we do

because

we

no longer

believe

n gods,

nor in

ourselves.

comedy

is

opposite

to religion.

exactly

when

reunion

is

going

to

happen,

aughter

breaks.l

t6 z

6j

we cannot

change.

we

are

already

ever''thing'

changing

would

mean

turning

into

something

different'

(and

would

mean

producing')

'changing'

is simply

a

very

complex

way

to

die'

a

pseudo'category

created

n

order

o not

accept

hat

'transformin

g'

I'changing'/'produc'

ing'

are

those

skills

which

aim

to

attack

or

wound

us'

'changing'

-."r,,

killing

some

of

us

inside

or

outside'

even

my

training

in

psychotherapy

eaches

me this:

we

must

murder

some

of

what/who

we

are.

health

s

adequate

murder.

and

my

mexican

culture reinforces

this

also:

he

most

important

thing

is

to

know

we must

die'

storyteiling

for

me

is

writing

about

how

we commit

suicide

or

participate

in

homi-

cide

both

in

life

and

in history.

not

how

a story

unfolds

or how

a

char-

acler

devel'op^s,

ut

how

death

happens

all

the

time'

for

me

the

page

s

war.

'while

writing

this

piece

dismantled

the

yellow

pages

and

hrew

them

all over the floor. it was raining heavily'

i

was

trying

to

keep

water

comingbelowthedoortoruinthebookspi ledontheothersideofthe

room,

Lut

kant's

smallf

losof'a

elahistoia

was soon

uined''

how

can

i build

my

mexicanness

here.

certain

references.

could

allude

o

being

a mestizo,

and

how

that

makes

tne

natwrally

multtple'

'autobiography.'we should readthis term the other way around' and

,"y

ro-"thing

like

this:

writing

is

always

auto-bio-graphical'

never

writing

on

^i.btt'.

graphos

text)

constructing

bios

life)

that

appears

as auti

(on

itself).

autobiography:

anguage

writing

on

itself

and

thus

becoming

'alive.'

'poor

gramsci.

hose

weren't

good

years

o

exist'

being

n

prison

made

hi-

ot.".r.d

with

details,

ust

like

wittgenstein's

closet

did

[for

him].

thinkers

whose

work

feels

ike

an

old

man

browsing

a bazaar,

inding

t

o

:.

o-

o

f

o.

o



U

c

o

.9

everything

amusing

as if

this were his

first time there and

not his

entire life's pattern

of attempts

o smell the vendor's

hair.

don't even

think

of mentioning

the

other

guy.

just

don't like him. gramsci

was

just

the

other

day

elling

us about his latest

inding

I

one more of his

'crucial'

remarks.

nothing

but

scraps.

e told us about

how

the italian

word

for mysticismwas

being used with

the french rnystique's

meaning

'predominantly

critical

and

pejorative.'

I

eniisting

consequences

I

he

wanted the two of us to say something that would have propelled his

little

speecheven

urther,

but both

of us said nothing,

dependenton

one another a s we

are

I

we

kept both

mouths

closed while we were

there.

we

fed each

other

I

etdng

our twenty ingers

caress

ach

other's

hair while

I

he

I

continued

explaining how those

wo words

united. he

wanted

us to et

him know

our opinion

of it or how

his words made

us

realize

somethingl

I

saw something in

our

mind

|

... understanding

what

culture had

come

o ...

I

but we

didn't respond

n anyway.we

kept

silent,making

no

sign ofhuman

contactbetween

us as

hough me and

her didn't

even know

each

other and it was

only accidentailv

we had

::-"

,od"t

to be at this young

old

man ce11.'

a character

s not getring

away rom

us, nor

going

(more) nside. none

of us

can be

written.

in

order for'us'to

be written

(down)

(:subjected)

(controlled),

n

order for any

of

'us'

to

become ext

/

even

ust

one

/,

(we) need

the presence

of the others,

their

coexistence, ue

to the

ghostly

fact

that there's

no single one.

no

one

(none)

can be written.

:t*"tr

some of

us left behind.

'kiil

every ndian.

et them

die while

escaping n the

ungle.

et's

behave

like

those hunters,

tribes or helicopters.'

fiction

equals.

personality.

life.'

who

is

the

real

subject,

eonardo

or mona lisal

flaubert

or madame

bovaryl

borgesor the

other borges

none of them.

16 a

just

two

out

of

a

multiplicity,

the

two of

them

chosen

by

reception

or

ihe author(ity)

precisely

because

any

of

them

could

play

thc

polaritl

game

well,

could

fit

into

the

fixed

or

easi\

movable

personality

fatterns.

how

is the

author

or

character

determined)

by

the

historical

L"g"-oty

of bodies

established

in

its

time

and

culture'

writing

h"ppe.tr,

books,

etc',

and

who

the

character

r

the

author

s

gets

deter-

*in"a

Uy

ftat

kind

ofbodies

are

accepted'

which

are

discarded'

class'

gender,unconscious,culture,all ofthese artifacts

are

used

o

establish

I recognizable

entity,

a

group

of

them

(authorbetween

hem)

"'

'after

the

crucifixion

iesus

wasn't

the

same

[character]

any

more'

but

we

couldn't

afford

to

know

that.

that's

why

somebody

needed

o

interpo-

late saint

thomas's

proof.

even

after

passion,

death

and

resurrection

occurred,

esus

kept

himself

the

same,

son

of

god

himself''

...unfinished

...

gospels

hat

contradicted

and

blurred

jesus'

image

too

much

"'

broulht

confusion

on

who and

how

he

was

.calling

that

corpus

of

text

apocrypha.

man

asks:

masks

-

so

many

of

them

-

whyl

-

m(other).

chupacabras

appeared

in

mexican

cult''rre

through

national

enq)irer-type

public"tiotts,

tv

series

and

mere

oral

transmission

(the

'streets').

hrrf"."br",

means

goat-sucker'

his

creature

could

even

be

linked

with ufos - shares with them the feature of never being

completely

seen.'

f

we

use

plot-theory,

chupacabras'was a

distrac-

tion.

those

holes

n

dead

animals

started

o appear

on

the

news

n the

late nineties,

when

former

mexican

president

carlos

salinas

was

sell-

ing

the

banks,

making

deals

with drug

cartels

and signing

nafta

with

c"i"d"

and

the

,.r.

.htp"."bras

was

used

n

mexico

as

michael

jack-

son's

pedophilic

scandals

were

used

n

nice

america'

but

the

distrac-

tion

was

ar too

obvious

and

goat-sucker

ecame

synonymous

with

tlie

look

of

salinas,

permanently

mocked/remembered

for

his

big

rat-1ike

ears,

an

nfamous

corruption

figure

defined

asa

ittle

monster

sucking

:J-

o

:.

o-

o

f

o

<

o.

o

N

r(r5



o

c

6

,9

O

E

the

blood of

the

'people,'

and

even having

killed his

nanny when he

was young.

black humour

masks

and toys

sold n mexican

cities skil-

fully

exploited

he resemblance

of

chupacabras

nd

salinas,

how they

were

related,

co-produced.

chupacabras

o me is

a meta-character

n how

characterworks.

a dead/unclear

body

that hides

and

reveals ho

nnli+i."1

unclean

in

his seminal

essay n the

storyteller,

walter

benjamin

makesa collat-

eral and

brief attack against

the short

story.

benjamin

despises

t

because

hrough the

short story we

abbreviate

and destroy

he possi

bility

of

multiple strata

fast-food

storyrelling.

benjamin writes

that

idea

and

many more,

many

- in

an

essay. short

essay,

y the

way.

the

essay ssures.

he essay

lso

shortens.

ike

aphorisms

and

short

stories,

he essay

ynthesizes.

ives

manageable

ackage

o

a previous

more

complex

and abundant

-

transpersonal

material - or spiritual

linguistic

net

of meanings.

maybe we

are an

age these

ast

centuries

ofwhich

we

are

stiil a part

- that

is only now

realizing we

have mpov-

erished

anguage

altogether.

in

some

apocrypha

and

other

gnostic,

judaic

and

muslim

sources,

jesus

had

a twin.

he

could

be

very

well

the one who impersonated

him

as

he resurrected

son

of god.

this is

an especially

empting

hypothe-

sis

because is

name was

om.

[saint]

homas

s

called

didimus'

(twin)

in certain versiclesof the new testament.a character dentical o esus

(maybe'jesus'himself)

(his double)

putting

his finger

in the wounds

on his hand

/

made

by

the

nails

ofthe

romans

/

in

order

o confirm

the

reaiity

of

his

[own]

dentity

and

life. in

order

o

produce

a unique

tale.

here

oo

esus,

a damaged

body,a

doubtful

one,metaphysically

volves

into

a hole

in the flesh.

...

if this

were

correct, poetics

and

fiction/theory

would

represent

forms

of decline.

these genres

of speculation

would

have

appeared

66

once

the

secrets,

traditions,

innovative

powers,

craft

and

ideas

behinditowards

narrative

had

come

to

a stop

or

-

fearing

complete

loss

or

esiring

control

- had

decided

o become

written

dogmas'

aws

'

established

prescriptions

replacing

the

previous

and

more

personal

oral

or

tr"nrp.rror,"1

transmission'

and

i'm

not

talking

here

of

an

esoteric

male

one-to-one

school

of

in-your-ear

transmission

but

simply

an environment

in

which

the

narrative-producer

(or

any

-rt".)

would gatherthe tools and visions for her/his creation from

the

collective

ulture,

slhe

would

hunt

during

her/his

travels'

indings

in

her/his

own

mind,

techniques

slhe

would

hunt

or

recelved

rom

that

concrete

historical

language/world'

the

essay

mode'

the

written

reflection-upon,

would

be,

f

tiris

s correct'

much

more

elitist

han

the

apparently

siientway

ofkeeping

the

narrative

ransformation

depend-

..ri

,rpon'ttt"

more

fluent

p'oi""tt

of

dialogue

among

its

malcers'

i isteners

r

ghosts.

let's

face

t:

by

writing

we become

nstant

elders'

authorities'

ntelh-

gent

peoplevlho

"pp,opriate

ideas

and

structures

ronr

the

culture

we

live

in

- and

increasi"gly

from

other

cultures'

decontextualizing

meanings

-

and

thanks

to

this

taking

awaywe build our <ownu'otk>''

people

Jho

not

only

steal

but

sign'

and

collstruct

a character

who

te1ls'

ao.ritr,

proposes

or

ignores

the

waywe

should

narrate'

from

story

o

history.

auschwitz'

china'

vietnam'

chiapas'

raq

-

every

name

or

place

s now

a

reference

o

a

murder

-

ry45'

ry68'

r9g

1'

2oor

-

every

""r,

"

plot

- nixon's

i 'm

not

a crook''

bush's

read

my

lips

". '

clinton,s

,didn't

inhale,'

even

milli

vaniili's

lip-synching

-

why

i'"'rite

fiction in a time of total fabrication

and

iesl

how

to

narrate

so

nothing

more

happensl

how

to

storytell

eventsso

not

even

one

more

-"kes

place?

here's

only

one

thing

worse

han

the

twentieth

century:

hauing

survived

it'

this

is

for

me

the

un-final

dilemma:

why

and

how

to

write

narrative

n a

time

when

man

begins

to

be

ndescribablel

N

OT E

r

chupacabras

was

dimly

photographed'

t

was

never

captured

alive'

the

best

shots

were

of

it as

a

badiy

decomposed

corpse'

hat's

what

i liked

about

it

J

D

L

o-

o

m.

n

o

r

(:-



R

i

s

a

a

E

"

P

h

g

+

6

E

P

F

P

@

X D

;

+

.

d

o

*

"

H

H

r

=

,

-

A

=

x

J

E

P

{

x

<

A

t

s

d

E

+

S

R

+

n

t

i

s

p

E

H

5

*

x

d

s

S

X

f

r

H

E

o

x

H

t

9

6

F

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:

P

@

(

o

@

yépez - on character 2004

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