“This revolution, this war, is different,” said a revolutionary. And then another. And then another.
Am I a revolutionary? Am I different? Yes. No. No… I don’t know. But being someone who’s well-read seems to be a symptom of being different. At least, of being different enough. And no, I’m not talking about the act of reading well, but the process by which someone becomes someone who’s well-read.
Looking back, I fell down the well and in love with reading when I was a kid in Texas after I picked up “The Yearling” by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, “Redwall” by Brian Jacques, and “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card. By the time I was half-way through high school in Toronto I started getting really bored with English literature, with the mindset behind it all. Luckily I stumbled upon this black-and-white Spanish graphic novel in a Toronto public library as I put down “Hellblazer” by Peter Milligan and “100 Bullets” by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. Captured by the very realistic and very graphic images it depicted of life in South American slums I spent a lot of time personally translating it. I didn’t play with a ball growing up so I had the time to waste. And man, did I waste it. I read that book so many times, like I loved it or something, because I guess I did, and then I ripped my favourite pages from it before returning it; I guess I knew I’d never see it again.
Even though I can’t remember its title anymore for the life of me, it’s still to this day one of my favourite graphic novels because it made me realize four things; one – real stories like this have no chance in hell on making it onto American televisions, two – real stories like this can sometimes never rightfully be captured through the English language, three – real stories like this can never be shared with people because they’d never be captured by some mad and inexplicable song demanding they put in hard work just getting over the barrier of miscommunication, and four – real stories like this are the best stories, period.
I don’t know if I’m a revolutionary, if I’m revolutionary, if I’m different, but these four realizations have revolutionized my life because of the life choices I’ve made because of them. To put things simply, I go to stories, I don’t let them come to me. I don’t speak multiple languages like a mad genius of some sort so I’ve wasted a lot of my life wading through hundreds of shitty stories written and translated mainly from French, Russian, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese; but I’ve found gems amongst the world’s garbage.
The world and every person in it are also filled with odd gems. With real shitty stories that are very hard to communicate. And for some mad reason I lean towards deciphering them with great difficulty rather than waiting for them to come to me prepackaged in a language I recognize. This has made me someone some people call well-read, others well-travelled, and others well-listening. I just think this is all a sign that I’m either very impatient or–yes–very different, if I’m going to cop to that label.
For example, a lot of people call themselves good listeners of the world, knowledgeable travellers and readers, because they’ve travelled to a country or know of its history. But I think otherwise, I think different, because I don’t think that anyone can know a place by being in it for less than a year. And I don’t think anyone can properly understand the sound of a place if they only stay in resorts and if any of the signs or people around them still speak English. To truly know a foreign place you’ve got to be utterly scared and confused, like surrendering your heart to someone you don’t quite understand or trust. No, we don’t open our hearts to people or places like that, it’s too painful to live like that, we’re vacationers passing through each others’ lives and lands, not travellers. But that makes sense, being a global vacationer is a lot more enjoyable than being a traveller with a good ear, by far, but it leaves you with the same sounding stories as everyone else. Stories of one-night stands. I would never call myself a traveller, but I’m farther from the term ‘vacationer’ than a lot of people, and I’m trying to be more open-hearted.
The same goes with people, as with most things. A lot of us date and have friends and have jobs but we’re closed-off. In friendship and love and work, we have a type, criteria that must be met. A lot of men date and work but we’re impressing other men, a lot of women date and work but they’re impressing other women. By this I don’t mean that we’re directly dating or working to impress the people around us, although there’s a lot of that happening too, what I mean is that in much the same way that almost everyone reads a book because someone we know or look up to has read it, we’re restricting and stereotyping ourselves to a type by not realizing that there’s more out there than just what we’re easily aware of. There are a lot of great people and jobs on this planet that don’t speak a language we or the people around us recognize, and they don’t come with subtitles. Unappealing to our senses they are by definition unattractive, undateable and unworkable before we ever get to know them. We’re unaware of these wonderful people and jobs because we don’t leave the resorts of our daily existences. We don’t wade outside of the shit that appeals and makes sense to us, the signs around us still speak English.
But this is how TV culture works, by coming to us.
No matter what platform or format it’s in, we are a culture in which video entertainment makes us aware of all things. But video entertainment, television show, only works by finding out what would be popular with a decent number of people first, for profit’s sake. Thus we, everyday people in a world of screens, are constantly consuming only what a good number of other everyday people are also consuming. We travel the world, but we’re all staying in resorts scientifically designed to maximize how comfortable we are with the chaotic world around us by giving us more of what we all already know, love, and understand. But by only staying in resorts, by constantly consuming what science says everyone finds entertaining we start to only think like everyone, because we’re only seeing what everyone else is as well. Same in, same out. Even when we think we’re being esoteric with our viewing habits we’re the same. This is how we who are anime nerds can come to conventions dressed as “Naruto,” “Monkey D. Luffy,” “Saitama,” or “Izuku Midoriya” without knowing who “Tang San,” “Linley Baruch,” “Wang Lin,” or “Yulian Provoke” is. This is how we date people, but they must be liberal or conservative or at least have our taste in lifestyle. This is how we’d never mop floors or pick fruit for a living. This is how we’re programmed by programs to have a type that we pursue without ever realizing it, how all our exes look alike. And how no one has a problem with our behaviour because they’ve watched the same videos we have. Because this is how TV culture works, by coming to us with its scientifically limited selection of just what the world and those we love should look like.
All this “much of the same thing again” sounds like high school doesn’t it? Like boredom. I’m really happy something drove me to translate that Spanish graphic novel. Like, I don’t even speak Spanish, what insane song drove me to do something so difficult for absolutely no reason? No clue, but I’ve realized a few things because of it.
I’ve realized Gil Scott-Heron was right when he sung, “The revolution will not be televised.” It will not come to us, we must go to it, and the medium is the message, the lack of it leads to all the difference. But in all of his songs Gil failed to hit on the more sobering flip side of his statement, “The revolution that’s not televised will never be known.” In a televised world, the revolution that doesn’t come to us doesn’t exist. We don’t leave our resorts. The world’s more connected than ever before, but we’re global vacationers, the signs around us are still in English.
Seriously ask yourself, “If word of the revolution doesn’t come to me, if it’s not in a language I recognize, will I ever know of it?” Most of us will answer no. Some of us will answer yes without realizing that there’s a revolution in progress right now.
The revolution isn’t dead, never that, but revolutionaries can’t be made these days. The revolution, the war, seem to belong to those of us already born with war-song in us. We’re mad I guess, strange warriors born during peacetime, wandering lands far from our resorts, maddeningly searching for a war to fight that finally resonants with the strange song born within us that demands we just translate things for ourselves.
I wonder who’ll be left to fight when the war takes us. For the war, the revolution, takes all of us who participate, all of us who step outside. As Lucie Brock-Broido wrote, “We who have know that the best of us did not come back.” Do you think we’ll fall having finally bested ourselves? Having finally found Valhalla? Having finally quieted and resonated with the mad song that drives us so? Do you think they’ll be a war, a revolution, that finally makes the difference? I dunno, but a revolutionary once told me, “This revolution is different. You’re different.” “Yeah, yeah,” I answered back, “I’ve read that before. In English, and all from a screen.”