When an unknown unemployed actor is offered a job walking around campus carrying a black bag, he accepts with a shrug. It’s not the most humiliating thing for him, the pay is good, and it’s nice to get out of the dinner theater after a while, but he doesn’t expect the anonymity of the bag to bring him a new relationship with a woman who likes his helplessness, friends who clamor for a way to monetize his “art project,” and a new sense of self. Irreverent and honest; black bag This is the answer to the “masculinity crisis” and suggests that the solution is much simpler than it seems.
Luke Kennard sat like this our culture We talk about real black bag research, sublimation, and self-help.
Tell us about the actual 1967 psychological study of black bags and why you were drawn to it.
I stumbled upon it as research. I was looking for different theories about attraction and social psychology. I came across the term “mere exposure effect”, which is partially used in advertising and politics, but originally it was about why people like each other, that is, they get used to each other. The black bag experiment was conducted by Professor Getzinger at the University of Oregon. Black Bag sat silently in the lecture hall during class, not saying anything, not interacting with anyone, and not responding when someone spoke to him. At first, the students found his presence unpleasant and truly abhorrent, and did not like his creepy, unresponsive appearance. They reacted with hostility and complained about it. But as the weeks went on, they became protective of the black bag. If someone criticizes him, he will support him and say, “Leave him alone and let him do what he wants.” She became very fond of him, and at the end of the semester she asked him out for drinks. And he said nothing. It’s a very noticeable, but half-erased figure. For Goetzinger, this proved to be just an exposure effect. I’m more interested in the person with the black bag. I liked the idea of him being a struggling actor. This is a role, but one that they feel they like and want to continue carrying the black bag.
The contrast between this person who lives to be on stage and who takes on anonymous roles is very interesting. Why does he feel closer to his true self when he’s in the bag?
In some ways, actors are like canaries in the coal mine for art. If things are bad for actors, they’re going to be very bad for people doing creative things. They go out all day every day and audition, but many other arts take more time. Maybe there’s something to that sense of selflessness. Wanting people to enjoy your work, wanting to be famous for your work, wanting people to say good things about your work is not a good impulse or instinct. The narrator is in his late 30s and is tired and frustrated at not being able to make a living, but he still believes in his talent. He doesn’t have much time to prove himself. For me, it’s pretty close to writing. Many of the writers I love may have reached a decent peak in their careers and then continued to fly under the radar for the rest of their lives. A few years ago, I became obsessed with Brooklyn novelist Gilbert Sorrentino and collected all of his books. It’s not printed in the UK, so I was ordering it online to get it from the Wyoming State Library or something. I devoured everything he wrote. Many of his works depict him as a slightly failed writer full of anger. But he was a genius and a man worthy of his reputation.
At the same time, the narrator feels the need to hide the black bag from his parents. Is there some hidden shame that he is not letting us know about?
He also refuses to describe his parents, saying only that they are two stone pillars. Writers are terrible, and the moment a writer describes someone, that person is assumed to be a terrible person. So he didn’t want them to go through that. I think this was around the time when there was a lot of talk about “likeable characters.” When you describe someone for the length of a novel, you include their flaws. Writing and narration can be accompanied by arrogance. You’re just trying to make yourself look as good as possible and everyone else looks like shit. I think that’s one of the worst impulses in writing, especially in the age of autofiction. The people you write about have a huge responsibility to do the right thing, so you don’t mention them at all. And that’s a shame! The narrator doesn’t want his parents to know what he’s doing, and this may be similar to publishing. When you approach something so personally, it becomes something else than life. You don’t necessarily have to want your family to participate.
He’s a pretty cocky guy and speaks openly about being the narrator of the novel.
Yes, he knows he’s a narrator, but he’s also very real. It’s a book he’s writing in his head. He’s quite pedantic and snobbish about a lot of things, but he’s also honest about how much of a man he feels he is or how weird his attitude towards his masculinity is. Part of it is how he’s trying to deal with being a certain kind of guy and the discomfort he feels about that, which shows in his desire to disappear into a black bag. He says to his friend, “Maybe this is the only way to be a man,” as if trying to apologize for it.
His friend Claudio is desperate to monetize his research through cryptocurrencies, art, or expository gestures. Do you think the narrator goes along with the black bag because he doesn’t really understand what it means?
I think he just likes Claudio, who is like a Twitch streamer. I have a lot of respect for that format, but I think it’s very difficult and punishing. I wanted it to be a contrast to someone who wants to be a traditional stage actor, who wants to be in Chekhov. Well, the idea is to focus your skills on things that are actually available at your age. He later had a conversation with an engineer friend and said, “If Dostoyevsky were alive today, what would he be doing? He wouldn’t be writing novels.” The narrator is desperate and wants to make money as well. If Claudio can make something out of this, so be it. He’s cynical enough to see where it’s going.
He develops a strange but fulfilling relationship with another professor, Justine, which involves anonymity and powerlessness. Why does this situation work?
He has been in a mutually unsatisfactory relationship. He feels that he has done something wrong all his life. But this is something completely different. He really likes this anonymity and submissiveness, and enjoys letting him hear stories about her escapades, including how she is sexually and domestically dominant. Towards the end, he tries to break up with her, but she refuses. You cannot go in the opposite direction. He finds some kind of joy and meaning in it. Being a certain kind of man in a relationship relieves him of pressure. I don’t think he knows why he likes it, but he enjoys passivity and abdicating responsibility.
In your novels, you seem to offer solutions to helpless people. in black bagit is a new identity, transition perioda housing experiment. What do you find interesting about these topics?
We have it fully ingrained in our culture. There are many people who will tell you why you are unhappy and what you can do to change it, but most of the time it’s snake oil. But there will always be a huge market for it. We constantly feel insecure about how we’re doing and what we’re doing wrong. It’s part of the modern mode of being talked to and sold to. “You’re a mess, but here’s a way to make it better.” My knee-jerk reaction to that is, “Just shut up! Don’t do that!” [laughs] To focus on oneself is to deny the possibility of community and collective action, and to focus purely on the individual. It makes us self-centered. in black bagthere is a crisis of meaning. There is not a crisis of masculinity, but a horribly degenerate version of masculinity that is on the brink of death and is especially violent and visible right now. But it’s more about the ancient question of how to live a meaningful life. The solutions we offer are either fake or selfish.
Finally, what are you working on next?
I’m planning to create a collection of carefully selected poems, but this is the opposite of writing, more like a palette cleanse. It’s been 20 years of work so there’s a lot to get rid of, but it’s nice to go back to what was in 2005 and think about what you want to keep. I’m vaguely working on a novel about Robert W. Chambers. [story]There is a cursed play script called “The King in Yellow” that causes everyone who reads it to lose their minds and ruin their lives. I love the idea of a cursed manuscript. I have compiled this into my doctoral thesis, but when I try to look into it, it is destroyed.
I’m working on a new novel and it’s still in the early stages, but I have a rough outline, but it’s going to be different. I try to create continuity between the works. I’ve written about four manuscripts with no other plans for publication, so I have a pretty good idea of how to write a book professionally. I don’t want to say too much because I feel more free not to say much, but yes, I do plan to write more novels.
black bag is out now.
Source: Our Culture – ourculturemag.com
