Giacomo 'Jack' Ortizano

Oyster River Pages: What do you hope readers or viewers of your piece take from it?

Giacomo 'Jack' Ortizano: I wrote “Double Singles” so that it could be read and appreciated at several levels. I expect some readers will take the story at face value without probing any further. I sought to present characters typically depicted as one-dimensional personalities and, for once, flesh them out with the addition of another perspective. Thus Junie is offered neither as a pitiful weakling of a matchstick girl nor as an omnipotent Supergirl who can handle any challenge with ease and strength. We see elements of both sides, a decidedly more humanizing portrait created by doubling the customary singles. I do hope a significant portion of my readers will react with repulsion, disgust and outrage. But after their initial agitation settles down, I’d like them to consider whether the story is realistic. As a mental health counselor, I hope they will at least consider the possibility that such situations actually exist. Upon their reflection, readers can ask themselves what they have ever done to alleviate children’s suffering in our society. When the answer is “nothing,” perhaps they will become motivated to take an active part in learning about—and subsequently responding to—the problems of abused, neglected and “parentified” children. As an educator, I also hope that I have provoked my readers’ curiosity. If they are unfamiliar with Jimmy Scott and John Coltrane, maybe they will give them a listen. Another goal was prodding readers to question my motives for giving my characters uncommon names and do some investigating. Alessandro, as an example, was inspired by Alessandro Serenelli of Italy. And what of names like Durian and Pandu? Those willing to make the effort will be rewarded with useful knowledge. I also tried to give readers an opportunity to learn about themselves. I intentionally did not specify details so that readers would fill in the blanks with their own values, stereotypes and biases. The readers can ask themselves how they portrayed the scenes in their minds while they read the story. What race and nationalities were the characters you envisioned in your head? In which city did the story occur? With which side of the two-sided characters did you identify?

ORP: Do you believe that hope is a luxury, a responsibility, a danger, or something else? Why?

GJC: I believe hope is an indispensable theological virtue that complements faith and love. Hope is the antidote to confusion, a gift that allows us to cope with life’s perplexing mysteries like tragedy, suffering and tribulation. Hope is what helps us to prefer sacrifice to consolation. Hope is what enables us to stride ahead with confidence rather than wither in stagnation and paralysis. It motivates joyful action to do good, inspire, heal and sanctify. Hope gives us the discernment to recognize danger and yet dare to give whatever is needed in a situation. Hope is light in a cosmos filled with the darkness of negativity, pessimism, denial and despair. Hope grows as its results justify itself—a habit infused with faith, trust and confidence—to transcend human boundaries and accomplish the overtly impossible. To offer hope is an underlying goal of literature, of all art for that matter, by evoking awareness, understanding and the desire to make a better world.

ORP: Are there any artists, writers, or works of art (including music, film, literature, etc.) that you believe are fundamentally misunderstood? In a sentence, how would you rectify the misunderstanding?

GJC: The rhythm and blues vocal group recordings of the 1950s have been overlooked, unfairly criticized and misunderstood by most music historians and journalists, especially those from England. I attribute the lack of understanding to unfamiliarity with urban life among minorities during that prolific decade. The vocal groups flourished along the Atlantic seaboard between Boston and the District of Columbia, as well as Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, California and greater Chicago. The groups mainly consisted of northern Blacks and white-ethnic Catholics and Jews. The majority of white Protestant singers of that era specialized in mainstream pop, country, rockabilly.and teen-oriented rock ’n’ roll. Because most of the people who have written about the music came from white Protestant backgrounds, they have utterly failed to grasp the features that characterized the 50s R&B groups. Nearly all group singers came from low-income urban areas, where they could not afford to buy instruments and relied solely on their voices. Background harmonies served primarily to showcase the attributes of the lead singer. The songs celebrated the search for beauty, fun and love that prevailed among the social and economic underclass living in large cities. This despite overwhelming surroundings of poverty, overcrowded tenements and either racial or ethnic prejudice. Popular racially integrated vocal groups, noticeably absent from other forms of music and popular culture at that time, included the Crests, Five Discs and Impalas from Brooklyn, the Robroys from the Bronx and the Dell Vikings from Pittsburgh. The British invasion and emergence of soul music during the1960s permanently pushed the group sounds off the radio airwaves. Perennially misjudged by inappropriate white Protestant standards rooted in middle-class life, the 1950s R&B vocal groups have never received the recognition and praise they deserved.

ORP: Years from now, when historians look back on the art and writing of the early 21st century, how do you think they will articulate the zeitgeist?

GJC: Historians looking back at the 21st century will view a technology-driven culture where multimedia displaces activity of people’s senses. Previously people focused on using one sense at a time, and they made a conscious effort to exercise each of the senses efficiently as possible. Suddenly the practice of focusing on individual senses no longer accommodated people’s tolerance for stimulation. As an example, in previous centuries music was primarily an aural activity performed by the human ear. By the year 2000, popular songs were considered incomplete if they lacked accompanying videos for the eyes. Live concerts supplemented sounds for the ears with light and pyrotechnic displays that dazzled the eyes, and at times the odor of cannabis to involve the nose. This process diminished the relevance of the music itself, which often could not be heard over the crowd noise and other distractions. Similarly the utility of writing continued to evolve. Twentieth century writing had begun with only the printed word—an inner, aural experience where the reader’s imagination supplied many important elements of a story. Time spent on reading the printed word was taken away by the emergence of radio, where the voices occurring in the reader’s head were replaced by announcers and actors. Thus began the reduction of active participation among media users. Radio, frequently called “theater of the mind,” was superseded by television and cinema, which added still more distance between writers and media consumers. Responsibility for providing scenery was shifted away from the reader’s imagination onto professionals who supplied visual content. By 2020, multimedia had progressed so far as to promote virtual worlds where users could create their own narratives without the need for writers.

ORP: What do you think is the most essential advice that most writers and artists ignore?

GJC: It appears to me that far too many writers set out to write genre pieces and eschew literature. For instance, the fantasy genre is very popular these days. Inexperienced fantasy writers tend to emphasize plot and setting instead of characters and ideas. Now I certainly agree that plot and setting can serve to enhance a story when it helps to drive home the main theme. But like a film where the ‘star’ is special effects, its text will not qualify as literature. Many young writers and would-be artists are directing more effort into pursuing the unique rather than the universal. They have it reversed. Genre writing strives to entertain, whereas literature aspires to art. I cannot understand setting the bar so pointlessly low. If beginning writers never try to stretch their ability to the fullest, they shall never know how far their skills can take them. I have no contempt for entertainment. It is all right to write for readers’ pleasure. But I do not see the sense in depriving writers and readers of reaching for more than pleasure. Art goes beyond pleasure and, in fact, often disturbs readers more than it pleases them. Art, on the other hand, often stimulates growing pains. Keep in mind, however, that those growing pains can lead to satisfaction and, in the end, fulfillment. Generally speaking, if a story cannot get a point across set in one room—with nothing more than chairs, a table and a couple of doors like in a one-act play—the story probably will not succeed if set on a foreign planet amid flashing lights and alien creatures. Writers do a disservice to themselves when they ignore the potential for developing their genre-restricted ideas into artful prose. Besides, good writing can produce work that meets the demands of both genre and literature. They are not mutually exclusive.

Giacomo 'Jack' Ortizano is a philosopher, educator, journalist and mental-health counselor. A visually-impaired Nuyorican, he was born and reared in the South Bronx. Ortizano holds a Ph.D. in mass communication from Ohio University. He lives in Texarkana, Texas, and can be reached at affirm101@yahoo.com. His story “Double Singles” appears in Issue 4.1.