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Many of you are lovers of fiction and know its powers innately, but can you explain it? I feel the need to articulate how a story does what it does and why it is important. I don't really know how to tie my thoughts together yet, so I am giving you a loosely assembled list. These are simple ideas that, I believe, are profoundly related to how we live our lives. That is, how we find meaning and identity.

Forgive me if this seems patronizing, I am about to state the obvious.

In "The Courtesy," by John Berger, the narrator's mother says, "I liked books that took me to another life--a life I might have lived." The trick is to relate. A single reader should find a hundred intersections between herself and the story. The story need not--and some might say should not--resemble its reader, but it must reflect the Laws of the Universe.

Now, the good news is the Laws of the Universe can all be boiled down to this one thing: Narrative. Narrative is used here as an adjective, simply having the aim or purpose of telling a story. For something to be described as a Narrative, structure and sequence are essential.

More good news: modern and post-modern authors have shown us that structure and sequence can be interpreted in endless ways. Also, I think it is impossible for humans to think or speak without it. So, that trick again? Think and speak like a human and you will relate to other humans.

But there's more.

In Berger's story, the mother also says, "You put something down and you don't immediately know what it is. It has always been like that... All you need to know is whether you're lying or telling the truth." To me, she is saying that writers should be mythmakers. She could have said, "Imagination is about seeing what Is."

That's what Alice Munro does with the flat-stomached girl who uses the bright-shouldered boy for her own sexual curiosity. That's what Salinger does with the arch of the little girls foot on the sand, Seymour watching her in his robe. That's what Raymond Carver does with the waitress who romanticizes her fat customer.

Fiction (and creative non-fiction, I suppose) inform reality. The act of storytelling is about finding continuity between past, present and future. Stories are our real life Tralfamadorians. There are parts of my past that seem like a betrayal of who I am presently, parts that I didn't choose and now resent. Writing allows me to unite what seems disjointed and to find value in missteps and loss.

Stories put things in order. They're like fill-in-the-blank statements: I am ______ because I was ______ or, simply, _____ because _____. And our lives answer with the next logical step. We choose based on the continuity we've found. This is how our creative consciousness shapes reality.

In every story, explicit or not, there's a metaphor that does the work of literally bringing an idea to life. First, the image and idea (as far as I'm concerned, they occur simultaneously, they're the chicken and the egg), then the understanding, and last, renewed behavior. Metaphor is the vehicle that takes us from first to last.

The poet Adrienne Rich said, "I have cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world." She makes me want to write, poetry or fiction or what have you. The storyteller changes the world through relationship (that old trick). An author can have no barriers between herself and the character(s). She has to empathize because she draws on herself to populate her story.

Journalists, it seems, have no place for empathy, no place even for hate. But they can't squirm out of telling a story. Fiction, it seems, is the root of it all.

This is the first in a series of posts where I will attempt to distill what I am learning about journalism. I have been given a lot to chew on (and put into practice) lately, and I feel I should document my ruminations. Forthcoming posts should address the tribalizing effects of the internet, the trend towards hyperlocality in news coverage, citizen journalism and the virtues of the E D I T O R.

But first, something fun.

The Yes Men are my journalistic heroes, and the reasons should be obvious.

The Yes Men are fine, upstanding impersonators. They have traversed the world pretending to be what they’re not: Republican supporters of corporate globalization and U.S. domination of world trade. Some call it lying; others call it identity theft; I call it civic performance art. Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano are concerned citizens who don costumes and then unmask their ideological opponents. They have perfected the hoax as protest, enlisting others along the way. Maybe you saw some Yes Men giving guided tours of New York city to Republican National Convention attendees. They were the ones outside the Metropolitan Detention Center proudly explaining that some have been held there for two years, without evidence, until proved innocent.

Bichlbaum and Bonnano first collaborated to create www.gatt.org, a mock-up of the World Trade Organization’s official website. The design closely mimics that of the real site, but the content reveals the hoax--primarily because it’s too honest. According to a November 2006 press release found on the site, the WTO announced an initiative for “full private stewardry of labor” in Africa. Private stewardship has, after all, been “successfully” extended to water, electricity, and DNA. WTO representative Hanniford Schmidt (who bears a striking resemblance to Bichlbaum) said that “full, untrammeled stewardry is:the inevitable result of free-market theory.” If only the real WTO was as forthright as Schmidt, who acknowledged “what free trade’s all about: the freedom to buy and sell anything--even people.”

The Yes Men are helping institutions like the WTO to be more honest; or maybe they’re just helping the world to be more perceptive. Either way they’re doing it with a sense of humor. Upon first glance, I thought cargillcorporate.com* might really belong to the multinational agriculture and pharmaceutical corporation. The design is clean and the language has that direct and personable tone so common to big businesses trying to come off as small. Then I saw a photograph of two mustached men that reminded me of Brokeback Mountain. The caption reads: “We provide a beefier beef to those with a beef against organic beef--some cowboys, for example.” The calling card of The Yes Men!

It’s this precision detail combined with over-the-top humor that makes The Yes Men so fascinating. They create masterful disguises and then, in one foul swoop, unmask both impersonators and impersonated. Just because they show all their cards, though, doesn’t mean everyone catches on. They have posed as “the world’s most powerful criminals” (their words) at conventions and seminars, in college classrooms and on television. Never have they failed to convince their audience and rarely has the audience challenged their often heinous proposals. And as each prank passes, The Yes Men are emboldened to speak with more frankness than before.

In the extensive FAQ section of their website, Bichlbaum and Bonnano describe their characterizations and speeches as “WTO dogma carried through to conclusions that are better left unstated in polite company.” At a seminar in Austria, The Yes Men suggested banning Spanish siestas and accused the Italians of having a poor work ethic. They also proposed a free-market democracy, where votes are bought and sold online to the highest bidders. Unfortunately, most of their listeners nodded passively, or agreed, demonstrating just how entrenched neoliberal illogic really is.

When asked why they call themselves The Yes Men, Bichlbaum and Bonnano responded, “You know how a funhouse mirror exaggerates your most hideous features? We do that kind of exaggeration operation, but with ideas. We agree with people--turning up the volume on their ideas as we talk, until they can see their ideas distorted in our funhouse mirror. Or that's what we try to do, anyhow--but as it turns out, the image always seems to look normal to them.” Also like a funhouse mirror, the image of reality that The Yes Men reflect is both comical and frightening. We may be laughing at their golden suit with its three-foot phallus, but we’re also shaking our heads in horror at the men and women who swallow their outrageous presentations without thinking.

Maybe it’s effective, but isn’t it illegal to parade around as someone else, penetrating private events? Perhaps; no one seems to know. Lawyers have difficulty pointing to any specific law that might pin The Yes Men for criminal activity. The WTO--the most frequent target of their projects--once retaliated by calling them “deplorable.” That’s about the worst of it, and the free publicity only benefited The Yes Men. Most victims simply let the hoax pass, hoping it will fade from public memory. To respond is to risk further ridicule. The Yes Men justify their tactics by claiming, “The news is already full of hoaxes; the only reason ours stand out is that we don't do them for profit.” Indeed, their deception is noble; it’s “identity correction,” not identity theft.

The Yes Men advertise “hundreds of thousands of job openings,” and this is no joke. A Yes Man, they proclaim, is anyone who exposes “the nastiness of powerful evildoers.” As Bichlbaum and Bonnano’s faces become more recognizable, they rely on a growing network of pranksters and activists to step up to the plate. All it takes is a little imagination, a little prodding from your friends, and a rush of adrenaline to agree your way into the private world of business. We’ve all heard the song and seen the dance; we know the routine by heart. It doesn’t take much to imitate your way into a corporate luncheon and return with some shaming behind-the-scenes stories to share with you family, your friends, or the press.

Continue reading 'Lesson #1: The Yes Men'