Definition
This is an attempt to add a new definition to an existing word. I have a few of these, which you can find in mouse-car’s Glossary of Terms. I use certain words incorrectly, but consistently, in a way which I find useful in my writing (so long as their mousecarian definitions are understood by readers). This is mostly how language grows. It is much more common for an existing word to evolve than for an entirely new one to spawn.
I’ve been using the word “document” lately in a way which I should probably specify. It started when I was in Thomas, West Virginia speaking to Kevin Chesser. Kevin is notable as both a poet and a banjo-player, but he also has a fascinating style of speech and outlook on life, as well as a rich backstory. I wanted to somehow capture all of these aspects in a forty-five minute piece, and was only able to do so by experimenting with the traditional interview format. In explaining this to him over coffee in his living room, I said that I wanted to “create a document of him.” I’m proud of the final product for the way it can be used to understand, as quickly as possible, the artist, performer and man that is Kevin.
After the experience, the concept stuck with me. I started seeing greater potential in the use of the word, and it quickly infiltrated my lexicon. A definition might look like this:
Document (dôk’yə-mənt) n. an understanding of a something which includes its widest possible context and implications.
Examples
After seeing the film Eileen (2023) based on the novel (2015) by Ottessa Moshfegh, I considered the ways in which the two pieces of media related to each other, especially when viewed in the wider scope of her career. The film was decent, but could be understood magnitudes better when placed beside the book. Since Ottessa wrote the script eight years after the novel’s release, the decision of what to include and what not to include indicated certain intentions. Between the novel and the film, Ottessa released three other novels, a novella, and a collection of short stories. Her style evolved, and the mediocre debut was succeeded by at least two novels which place amongst the best of this century. The reading public watched in real time as her perception of the world revealed itself and she became more comfortable working that perception into her fiction. In the past nine years she has become a celebrated voice of the hideous. She has forced us to confront rigid characters with brutal and disgusting interior lives, and her success proves that we connect with that, or at least crave it. When Eileen hit theaters, fans of hers quickly noted that the book was the least “Ottessa” of all the Ottessas.
The film was well-received, and there seemed to be a divide within positive reviews between those who’ve read the book and those who haven’t. Some argued that to have read the book allowed viewers a much more intimate understanding of the main character’s interiority, enabling them to attribute intention where it didn’t exist cinematically. Those who didn’t read the book, on the other hand, may have been more capable of taking the information presented at face value without carrying preconceived notions into the theater. As an inherent vice of cinema, there was less to chew on via screen than one might get from a three-hundred page novel. These considerations— the context of the original text versus its adaptation; the context of her later work; Ottessa’s public persona as a sort of defiant anti-intellectual and the fact that she had written the screenplay with her husband— all feed the conception of Eileen as a “document.” In clunkier terms, it is the difference between taking something at face value vs. considering all available information and dissecting something “as a whole.” When considered as a document, the entity known as Eileen goes from a campy but satisfying flick to a consideration of how an artist evolves, how literature translates to the screen, what might be inferred from a film written by a couple. It requires more effort, but the practice enriches the experience.
Another example of document came to me the other night after a concert. Speaking with a friend who was present at The Local Honeys performance in Huntington, I realized we had two totally different experiences. This was their first time seeing the group, and since I had seen them play four times in a six-week period, there was discord in our perceptions of the show. I think that discord can be attributed to the idea of document.
My first time seeing them was as a full-band at a house-show in front of eighty people. There were production issues, and the artists only played their most popular song after the organizer of the event walked up to them and quietly requested it. The second time was as a duo, opening for a larger act at a clean-water symposium in a sit-down theater. The third time was alongside other musicians they had never played with. They were drunk, and only did covers of traditional folk songs in front of thirty people, late at night. The fourth was with a slightly altered line-up at a venue notorious for college punk shows. To consider this last performance as a document, one would have to think of the way their reputation had evolved throughout the last few weeks, how the addition of a fiddle player changed their setlist, what it meant that one band member drank three beers and the other had zero, who was in the audience, who left after the opener, what it meant to cover Darrin Hacquard’s Huntington, a song they performed with the notorious and troubled musician seven years ago in Dingess, WV. What it meant that one of the lead singer’s boyfriend was in the audience. The recent snowfall making roads dangerous.
All of these considerations add up to a perception of the show which is more informed then the one the bartender might have had, tired from her third shift that week and practiced at blocking out the music being played fifty feet away.
vs. Straussianism
This type of practice isn’t new, but I find it helpful to have a word for it. It is similar to the concept of “Straussian,” defined in my glossary, which is an idea in literary criticism that a writer’s disposition should be considered when thinking critically on their work. That word, Straussian, was taken and revitalized by economist Tyler Cowen to understand anything in the widest context possible. In Cowen’s use of the word, it often implies that secret messages can be found in the lyrics of a Beatle’s song or entire language-patterns.
Maybe I just want to coin my own word for the practice, but I think there is a crucial difference between document and Straussianism. To describe something as Straussian, you are making inferences from the perceived disposition of its creator. To study something as a document is to understand it within the context of its existence. To understand something as a document you are understanding it as a work of its creator, while to understand something as Straussian you are understanding it as a work by its creator. This seems trite because it is, but in using both I’ve found the difference to be crucial. For example, one might say “That lamp can be understood as a document by the way it sheds light on the room and alters the mood of those around it. The Straussian implications of this are that I could not afford a nicer lamp, or that certain humans will opt for lower lighting based on taste.”
Usage
Some additional ways document could be used in a sentence:
“The filled bookcase in his living room is a document to his love for modern British literature.”
“The document of Matt Rife’s Netflix-special implies that he no longer enjoys the fandom he’s built on TikTok.”
“Charleston as a document attracts people who prefer a low cost of living to access to metropolitan conveniences.”
Next week on the mouse-car moment
Anyways, thanks for tuning in. This piece is kind of a throwaway, but I promise if you work this word into a conversation it’ll make you sound interesting and sensitive. Someone might even respond, “What a fascinating use of that word, I now understand you to be a perceptive and thought-provoking individual,” and you can turn to the camera and wink. “What’s your secret?” they might ask. You can tell them or not: ”Why, I never miss a mouse-car moment.”
This weekend I will be posting some poetry. Sorry in advance.