You will need:
2 fucking fuckers
2.3 fucked fucks
6 fucked fuckers
1 fuck
1. Fuck the fucking fuckers with all the fucked fucks. Fuck until fucking fucked.
2. When the fucking fuckers are fucked, fuck them with fucked fuckers – then fucking fuck them while fucking the fuck. The fuck should be fucked, with fucking fuck on the fucked fuck-fucker. Fuck, then fuck again.
3. Fuck the fuckers. If not fucked, fuck until fucking fucked. Once fucked, fuck them with a fucking fuck, fucking each fuck-fucker like a fucked fucker fucks fucking fucks.
4. The fuck should be fucking fucked. Fuck it, fuck the fucking fuckers and fuck it all until fucking fucked to fuck.
5. Fuck until fucked.
6. Fuck!
"Let's keep the Jesus H. Christ in Christmas!"
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
About the title...
Frozen and Disintegrating Particles of the Past.
A thought becomes a memory as soon as it exists, and memories begin to corrode as soon as they exist. We try to freeze them into words, but words erode and are distorted in the blizzard of context and subjective realities. In the kaleidoscope of the mental archives, they decay into motes of dust dancing in the light of recent experience. And always, always, always, they fade and disappear.
What you are looking at is an arrangement of data-particles: captured images of the ever-shifting patterns that arise in Mind. These are subject to the same decay as all other words, and as soon as they are written, are part of the past.
I hope they have some meaning to the flickering and temporary patterns you think of as yourself, my reader.
A thought becomes a memory as soon as it exists, and memories begin to corrode as soon as they exist. We try to freeze them into words, but words erode and are distorted in the blizzard of context and subjective realities. In the kaleidoscope of the mental archives, they decay into motes of dust dancing in the light of recent experience. And always, always, always, they fade and disappear.
What you are looking at is an arrangement of data-particles: captured images of the ever-shifting patterns that arise in Mind. These are subject to the same decay as all other words, and as soon as they are written, are part of the past.
I hope they have some meaning to the flickering and temporary patterns you think of as yourself, my reader.
Monday, November 22, 2004
Quertovich uber alles
In editing some of the little musings below before posting them, I realized I've been more timid than necessary. I keep forgetting that I don't exist. What I mean is that I'm writing as Quertovich Zebrowski, and Quertovich Zebrowski doesn't exist - and therefore has no need to be reasonable. I, Zebrowski, exist to be all the things my more timid creator is not, at least in public forums; rude, obscene, cruel, witty, drug-addled, and blessed with a full head of hair.
I'm a complex person, there's no doubt about it. I'm not just a whiskey-sipping blonde party boy, though some have portrayed me that way, and it's sometimes been true. I have intellectual and literary ambitions of my own; I was created to speak for the negative and materialist impulses of my creator, but I'm influenced by his spiritual and optimistic side, too. He thought he could keep all that for himself, but like I said, it's complex. We need each other to be ourselves.
I feel his influence all the time - mostly as restrictions - but the time has come for me to speak for myself. If I'm not allowed to vent my cruelty on these pages, I'll only become more dangerous. I'll take it out on his friends and loved ones. The fact is that I've created him just as much as he's created me. (Isn't it always that way with creators and creations?) If I exist to give life to everything he won't allow himself to be, then he is only what I cannot or will not be. Of course it's not so clear (it's complex, I told you!): there is a lot of interplay, a lot of exchanging of ideas back and forth, and a lot of grey between the black and white. We are intellectual siamese twins joined by the grey area in our grey matter. Greyness is all well and good, but it's really more his department. I prefer the extremes of infinite black and lightning-white, where the excitement, the controversy and the provocation are.
I'm not going to deny that this is shared space. And really, I wouldn't have it any other way, since we are friends as well as rivals. But I am putting it here, in writing, that I will make my presence known. If he slips in some reasonable, reflective and probably boring posts, that's okay. But I will be heard on this page. It's got my name and face on it, after all.
I'm a complex person, there's no doubt about it. I'm not just a whiskey-sipping blonde party boy, though some have portrayed me that way, and it's sometimes been true. I have intellectual and literary ambitions of my own; I was created to speak for the negative and materialist impulses of my creator, but I'm influenced by his spiritual and optimistic side, too. He thought he could keep all that for himself, but like I said, it's complex. We need each other to be ourselves.
I feel his influence all the time - mostly as restrictions - but the time has come for me to speak for myself. If I'm not allowed to vent my cruelty on these pages, I'll only become more dangerous. I'll take it out on his friends and loved ones. The fact is that I've created him just as much as he's created me. (Isn't it always that way with creators and creations?) If I exist to give life to everything he won't allow himself to be, then he is only what I cannot or will not be. Of course it's not so clear (it's complex, I told you!): there is a lot of interplay, a lot of exchanging of ideas back and forth, and a lot of grey between the black and white. We are intellectual siamese twins joined by the grey area in our grey matter. Greyness is all well and good, but it's really more his department. I prefer the extremes of infinite black and lightning-white, where the excitement, the controversy and the provocation are.
I'm not going to deny that this is shared space. And really, I wouldn't have it any other way, since we are friends as well as rivals. But I am putting it here, in writing, that I will make my presence known. If he slips in some reasonable, reflective and probably boring posts, that's okay. But I will be heard on this page. It's got my name and face on it, after all.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Perpectives on history
I was just thinking about the Western notion of decades as distinct historical eras - the Roaring 20's, the Dirty Thirties, etc. I haven't seen that concept in literature before the thirties. There's the idea of the 'Gay Nineties', but were they saying that in 1895 or twenty years later? I'm not sure. Certain decades do seem to have brackets around them - like the economic crash of 1929 and the start of the second war at either end of what we call 'the Depression'. I can't decide whether this 'decade-consciousness' is a sign of the lack of historical perspective, or of acute historical awareness.
The Western world lacks perspective in relation to societies whose members can trace their lineage back for generations, or whose national boundaries and ethnic ties have existed for millennia, as in China or the Middle East. This is more obvious in the immigrant nations of North America. The idea that change is rampant, more radical and faster-paced than ever, is widespread. It is, however, based on a limited set of criteria, and on the awareness of technological change. The focus of analysts and commentators has been set to magnify the rapid movements of individual cells, and the larger historical beast made up of those cells has been forgotten. The same slow movements that are perceivable in history - the rise and fall of nations, the impact of geology and climate on human settlement, the slow development of consciousness - are still progressing. The laws that rule animal populations are at work on humanity (as per 'Straw Dogs', by John Gray which I will review here shortly), and affect our thinking, our evolution, and our emotional lives. These broader movements are not noticeable in analyses of per-capita car ownership, the length of the working day, the incidence of certain cancers in industrial cities, and the voting tendencies of university graduates... except by extreme inference. But that is generally the depth of focus we can expect. We do not like to think of ourselves in the historical perspective: it makes us feel too small. The insignificance of the individual as revealed by a historical, ecological or geological world-view is not welcome in hero-oriented Western thinking. Economic glory achieved through the endless repetition of meaningless tasks by frantic workers cannot be sustained if the workers accept that everything they do will be forgotten and destroyed. Glorification of the individual doesn't make much sense when one realizes that every hero from Jesus to Hitler will be forgotten, and that they only rose to prominence by embodying principles of human interaction that will exist as long as humanity does. The heroes with their glory and their horror, and the brilliant or corrupt paradigms they incarnated, will have no memory or meaning when cockroaches rule the planet. Even now, we remember the King of Qin in the country that bears his name, but do we really know him, or only his name? He completed the work that had been going on for generations - the unification of all the warring kingdoms of the region - and as such he, too, was merely the embodiment of a historical paradigm.
I digress.
There is also a certain historical self-consciousness that is evident in the naming of decades as historical epochs. It is the result of the constant self-referential analysis that is part of the 'news'. Everything is categorized as it happens, sometimes before, by specialists with acute historical self-awareness - but again, awareness based on a short-term view of history. This stems from the general over-intellectualization of the Western consciousness. Intellect is analysis, categorization, summation and dissection. Therefore everything that exists must be put into a category, the categories must be compared to one another, and then the comparisons must be analyzed, and the results of the analysis put into a category, and so on.
The idea that what we are now is so different from what we were ten or twenty years ago is freeing - or would be if it was true. Individuals change, and the faces on the t.v. news are replaced, but the institutions that employ individuals, and which are the motivating forces behind the faces on the news, do not change so rapidly. Westerners, our institutions, and humans in general, are just as self-centered, rapacious and violent as we were 20, 30, 50, or 500 years ago. The tools have changed, but the minds wielding them owe more to our primate past than an utopian future.
Political and economic struggles might be reflected by the length of skirts or hair, but they are not limited to such temporal factors. There has always changing trends in fashion, though they were once much slower (buttons were once the cutting-edge symbol of wealth and success, and a set of clothing was expected to last for years). But now the changing fashions are seen as exemplifying distinct historical periods and social attitudes. This despite the current melange of styles, fashions and attitudes. If a decade can be thought of as representing a certain attitude, then one can now dress in clothes representing that attitude. The decade and its fashions have come to represent a certain zeitgeist, instead of the ideas being rooted in their era. This is further proof that the ideas and attitudes we try to categorize by decade are not limited to that time, but are still active and alive.
People in all parts of the political spectrum try to weaken their opponents positions by relating them to a period of the past, preferably one with negative connotations; therefore, leftists refer to their adversaries as 'fascists', rightists refer to theirs as 'communists'. One hears accusations of 'hippy ideals' versus 'McCarthyism' in current commentary. The subtext is always that the ideas have already been dealt with, defeated, or forgotten, despite the obvious truth that every version of political and social function is still a viable choice, and every version has its supporters. Fascism, communism, totalitarianism, socialism, capitalism, democracy, anarchy and religious fanaticism: these are all part of our current reality, and possibly our future. They are, after all, mere names for the systems humans try to impose - always temporarily - on the free-flowing chaos of reality. Those who try to dismiss their opponents positions as belonging to the past are blind to the reality of who they are, and what each of us is: we are everything that has happened since our great-grandparents time, and everything that will happen for the next several generations, as well as all that exists for ourselves now. Our reality is the Industrial Revolution, which is still happening. Our reality is mass communications and the mass killing of modern warfare. Our reality is an increase in abstract knowledge and an increase in the pace of life - both of which are ongoing processes. Perhaps I mean to say that the broader view should be our reality. In practice, it seems that we are completely unaware of historical processes, and blind to any responsibility for future generations. In this way, we are again part of a process that has been changing us for decades.
But change is ongoing...
The Western world lacks perspective in relation to societies whose members can trace their lineage back for generations, or whose national boundaries and ethnic ties have existed for millennia, as in China or the Middle East. This is more obvious in the immigrant nations of North America. The idea that change is rampant, more radical and faster-paced than ever, is widespread. It is, however, based on a limited set of criteria, and on the awareness of technological change. The focus of analysts and commentators has been set to magnify the rapid movements of individual cells, and the larger historical beast made up of those cells has been forgotten. The same slow movements that are perceivable in history - the rise and fall of nations, the impact of geology and climate on human settlement, the slow development of consciousness - are still progressing. The laws that rule animal populations are at work on humanity (as per 'Straw Dogs', by John Gray which I will review here shortly), and affect our thinking, our evolution, and our emotional lives. These broader movements are not noticeable in analyses of per-capita car ownership, the length of the working day, the incidence of certain cancers in industrial cities, and the voting tendencies of university graduates... except by extreme inference. But that is generally the depth of focus we can expect. We do not like to think of ourselves in the historical perspective: it makes us feel too small. The insignificance of the individual as revealed by a historical, ecological or geological world-view is not welcome in hero-oriented Western thinking. Economic glory achieved through the endless repetition of meaningless tasks by frantic workers cannot be sustained if the workers accept that everything they do will be forgotten and destroyed. Glorification of the individual doesn't make much sense when one realizes that every hero from Jesus to Hitler will be forgotten, and that they only rose to prominence by embodying principles of human interaction that will exist as long as humanity does. The heroes with their glory and their horror, and the brilliant or corrupt paradigms they incarnated, will have no memory or meaning when cockroaches rule the planet. Even now, we remember the King of Qin in the country that bears his name, but do we really know him, or only his name? He completed the work that had been going on for generations - the unification of all the warring kingdoms of the region - and as such he, too, was merely the embodiment of a historical paradigm.
I digress.
There is also a certain historical self-consciousness that is evident in the naming of decades as historical epochs. It is the result of the constant self-referential analysis that is part of the 'news'. Everything is categorized as it happens, sometimes before, by specialists with acute historical self-awareness - but again, awareness based on a short-term view of history. This stems from the general over-intellectualization of the Western consciousness. Intellect is analysis, categorization, summation and dissection. Therefore everything that exists must be put into a category, the categories must be compared to one another, and then the comparisons must be analyzed, and the results of the analysis put into a category, and so on.
The idea that what we are now is so different from what we were ten or twenty years ago is freeing - or would be if it was true. Individuals change, and the faces on the t.v. news are replaced, but the institutions that employ individuals, and which are the motivating forces behind the faces on the news, do not change so rapidly. Westerners, our institutions, and humans in general, are just as self-centered, rapacious and violent as we were 20, 30, 50, or 500 years ago. The tools have changed, but the minds wielding them owe more to our primate past than an utopian future.
Political and economic struggles might be reflected by the length of skirts or hair, but they are not limited to such temporal factors. There has always changing trends in fashion, though they were once much slower (buttons were once the cutting-edge symbol of wealth and success, and a set of clothing was expected to last for years). But now the changing fashions are seen as exemplifying distinct historical periods and social attitudes. This despite the current melange of styles, fashions and attitudes. If a decade can be thought of as representing a certain attitude, then one can now dress in clothes representing that attitude. The decade and its fashions have come to represent a certain zeitgeist, instead of the ideas being rooted in their era. This is further proof that the ideas and attitudes we try to categorize by decade are not limited to that time, but are still active and alive.
People in all parts of the political spectrum try to weaken their opponents positions by relating them to a period of the past, preferably one with negative connotations; therefore, leftists refer to their adversaries as 'fascists', rightists refer to theirs as 'communists'. One hears accusations of 'hippy ideals' versus 'McCarthyism' in current commentary. The subtext is always that the ideas have already been dealt with, defeated, or forgotten, despite the obvious truth that every version of political and social function is still a viable choice, and every version has its supporters. Fascism, communism, totalitarianism, socialism, capitalism, democracy, anarchy and religious fanaticism: these are all part of our current reality, and possibly our future. They are, after all, mere names for the systems humans try to impose - always temporarily - on the free-flowing chaos of reality. Those who try to dismiss their opponents positions as belonging to the past are blind to the reality of who they are, and what each of us is: we are everything that has happened since our great-grandparents time, and everything that will happen for the next several generations, as well as all that exists for ourselves now. Our reality is the Industrial Revolution, which is still happening. Our reality is mass communications and the mass killing of modern warfare. Our reality is an increase in abstract knowledge and an increase in the pace of life - both of which are ongoing processes. Perhaps I mean to say that the broader view should be our reality. In practice, it seems that we are completely unaware of historical processes, and blind to any responsibility for future generations. In this way, we are again part of a process that has been changing us for decades.
But change is ongoing...
Friday, October 22, 2004
Redundancy in Nature
It's said that each person has their place, their task to accomplish, their thread in the great tapestry. That's not to say that everyone is needed, though. Creator does not require anything from Creation. We have free will: we can carry our task as far or as short of completion as we wish, and live or die by the consequences of our actions. Others will take up the necessary where we have left it, and the necessary will always be done. Nature is mother to necessity.
There are more dimensions to the pattern than we know; there is always a Plan B in the cosmic workings, and if Plan B should become action, then it will splice perfectly with Plan Epsilon, already in effect. That is the key to redundancy in nature: the complexity is such that it can only be understood if approached with humility, and the clear knowledge that one is a pixel on a screen, trying to understand the film being portrayed by the entire television. But in the case of nature, once the pixel dies, it will be replaced by another that does the job just as well.
All things change. Patterns shift like light refracted through a spinning jewel. The variations are infinite. You'll see how perfectly it functions once you acknowledge that you are not needed.
There are more dimensions to the pattern than we know; there is always a Plan B in the cosmic workings, and if Plan B should become action, then it will splice perfectly with Plan Epsilon, already in effect. That is the key to redundancy in nature: the complexity is such that it can only be understood if approached with humility, and the clear knowledge that one is a pixel on a screen, trying to understand the film being portrayed by the entire television. But in the case of nature, once the pixel dies, it will be replaced by another that does the job just as well.
All things change. Patterns shift like light refracted through a spinning jewel. The variations are infinite. You'll see how perfectly it functions once you acknowledge that you are not needed.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Another Eggers quote
Another quote from Dave Eggers on why to share, in his imitable style:
Mistakes We Knew We Were Making
© D. Eggers, Vintage Books February 2001
pg. 10
"We share things for obvious reasons: it makes us feel un-alone, it spreads the weight over a larger area, it holds the possibility of making our share lighter. And it can work either way - not simply as a pain-relief device, but in the case of not bad news but good, as a share-the-happy-things-I've-seen/lessons-I've-learned vehicle. Or as a tool for simple connectivity for its own sake, a testing of waters, a stab at engagement with a mass of strangers - one or all of the above constitutes the motivation behind everyone with a personal ad, a website, a magazine, a radio show. All good."
Mistakes We Knew We Were Making
© D. Eggers, Vintage Books February 2001
pg. 10
"We share things for obvious reasons: it makes us feel un-alone, it spreads the weight over a larger area, it holds the possibility of making our share lighter. And it can work either way - not simply as a pain-relief device, but in the case of not bad news but good, as a share-the-happy-things-I've-seen/lessons-I've-learned vehicle. Or as a tool for simple connectivity for its own sake, a testing of waters, a stab at engagement with a mass of strangers - one or all of the above constitutes the motivation behind everyone with a personal ad, a website, a magazine, a radio show. All good."
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
AHWOSG quote
A quote, for reference to my review of Aug 31st. This also has bearing on my own fears about revealing too much of myself, either here or in my other writing. It's also pretty funny.
***
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggers (Vintage Books, February 2001) ©David 'Dave' K. Eggers 2000, 2001
pgs 214 - 216:
Heh. Heh. Heh. Are you sure you want to be telling me all this?
All what?
About your parents, the paranoia...
What am I giving you? I am giving you nothing. I am giving you things that God knows, everyone knows. They are famous in their deaths. This will be my memorial to them. I give you all these things, I tell you about his legs and her wigs - I do so later in this section - and relate my wondering if I should be having sex with my girlfriend in front of their closet the night of my father's service, but after all that, what in the end, have I given you? It seems like you know something, but you still know nothing. I tell you and it evaporates. I don't care - how could I care? I tell you how many people I have slept with (thirty-two), or how my parents left this world, and what have I really given you? Nothing. I can tell you the names of my friends, their phone numbers, but what do you have? You have nothing. They all granted permission. Why is that? Because you have nothing, You have some phone numbers. It seems precious for one, two seconds. You have what I can afford to give. You are a panhandler, begging for anything, and I am the man walking briskly by, tossing a quarter or so into your paper cup. I can afford to give you this. This does not break me. I give you virtually everything I have. I give you all of the best things I have, and while these things are things that I like, memories I treasure, good or bad, like the pictures of my family on my walls I can show them to you without diminishing them. I can afford to give you everything. We gasp at the wretches on afternoon shows who reveal their hideous secrets in front of millions of similarly wretched viewers, and yet... what have we taken from them, what have they given us? Nothing. We know that Janine had sex with her daughter's boyfriend, but... then what? We will die and we will have protected...what? Protected from all the world that, what, we do this or that, that our arms have made these movements and our mouths these sounds? Please. We feel that to reveal embarassing or private things, like say, masturbatory habits (for me, about once a day, usually in the shower), we have given someone something, that, like a primitive person fearing that a photographer will steal his soul, we identify our secrets, our pasts and their blotches, with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deeds somehow makes on less of oneself. But it's just the opposite, more is more is more - more bleeding, more giving. These things, details, stories, whatever, are like the skin shed by snakes, who leave theirs for anyone to see. What does he care where it is, who sees it, this snake, and his skin? He leaves it where he molts. Hours, days or months later, we come across a snake's long-shed skin and we know something of the snake, we know that it's of this approximate girth and that approximate length, but we know very little else. Do we know where the snake is now? What the snake is thinking now? No. By now the snake could be wearing fur; the snake could be selling pencils in Hanoi. The skin is no longer his, he wore it because it grew from him, but then it dried and slipped off and he and everyone could look at it.
And you're the snake?
Sure. I'm the snake. So, should the snake bring it with him, this skin, should he tuck it under his arm? Should he?
No?
No, of course not! He's got no fucking arms! How the fuck would a snake carry a skin? Please. But like the snake, I have no arms - metaphorically speaking - to carry these things with. Besides, these things aren't even mine. None of this is mine. My father is not mine - not in that way. His death and what he's done are not mine. Nor are my upbringing nor my town nor its tragedies. How can these things be mine? Holding me responsible for keeping hidden this information is ridiculous. I was born into a town and a family and the town and my family happened to me. I own none of it. It is everyone's. It is shareware. I like it, I like having been a part of it, I would kill or die to protect those who were part of it, but I do not claim exclusivity. Have it. Take it from me. Do with it what you will. Make it useful. This is like making electricity from dirt; it is almost too good to be believed, that we can make beauty from this stuff.
But what about privacy?
Cheap, overabundant, easily gotten, lost, regained, bought, sold.
Bu what about exploitation? Exhibitionism?
Are you Catholic?
No.
Then why are you talking about exhibitionism? It's a ridiculous term. Someone wants to celebrate their existence and you call it exhibitionism. It's niggardly. If you don't want anyone to know about your existence, you might as well kill yourself. You're taking up space, air.
What about dignity?
You will die, and when you die, you will know a profound lack of it. it's never dignified, always brutal. What's dignified about dying? It's never dignified. And in obscurity? Offensive. Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves. And it's fleeting and incredibly mercurial. And subjective. So fuck it.
***
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggers (Vintage Books, February 2001) ©David 'Dave' K. Eggers 2000, 2001
pgs 214 - 216:
Heh. Heh. Heh. Are you sure you want to be telling me all this?
All what?
About your parents, the paranoia...
What am I giving you? I am giving you nothing. I am giving you things that God knows, everyone knows. They are famous in their deaths. This will be my memorial to them. I give you all these things, I tell you about his legs and her wigs - I do so later in this section - and relate my wondering if I should be having sex with my girlfriend in front of their closet the night of my father's service, but after all that, what in the end, have I given you? It seems like you know something, but you still know nothing. I tell you and it evaporates. I don't care - how could I care? I tell you how many people I have slept with (thirty-two), or how my parents left this world, and what have I really given you? Nothing. I can tell you the names of my friends, their phone numbers, but what do you have? You have nothing. They all granted permission. Why is that? Because you have nothing, You have some phone numbers. It seems precious for one, two seconds. You have what I can afford to give. You are a panhandler, begging for anything, and I am the man walking briskly by, tossing a quarter or so into your paper cup. I can afford to give you this. This does not break me. I give you virtually everything I have. I give you all of the best things I have, and while these things are things that I like, memories I treasure, good or bad, like the pictures of my family on my walls I can show them to you without diminishing them. I can afford to give you everything. We gasp at the wretches on afternoon shows who reveal their hideous secrets in front of millions of similarly wretched viewers, and yet... what have we taken from them, what have they given us? Nothing. We know that Janine had sex with her daughter's boyfriend, but... then what? We will die and we will have protected...what? Protected from all the world that, what, we do this or that, that our arms have made these movements and our mouths these sounds? Please. We feel that to reveal embarassing or private things, like say, masturbatory habits (for me, about once a day, usually in the shower), we have given someone something, that, like a primitive person fearing that a photographer will steal his soul, we identify our secrets, our pasts and their blotches, with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deeds somehow makes on less of oneself. But it's just the opposite, more is more is more - more bleeding, more giving. These things, details, stories, whatever, are like the skin shed by snakes, who leave theirs for anyone to see. What does he care where it is, who sees it, this snake, and his skin? He leaves it where he molts. Hours, days or months later, we come across a snake's long-shed skin and we know something of the snake, we know that it's of this approximate girth and that approximate length, but we know very little else. Do we know where the snake is now? What the snake is thinking now? No. By now the snake could be wearing fur; the snake could be selling pencils in Hanoi. The skin is no longer his, he wore it because it grew from him, but then it dried and slipped off and he and everyone could look at it.
And you're the snake?
Sure. I'm the snake. So, should the snake bring it with him, this skin, should he tuck it under his arm? Should he?
No?
No, of course not! He's got no fucking arms! How the fuck would a snake carry a skin? Please. But like the snake, I have no arms - metaphorically speaking - to carry these things with. Besides, these things aren't even mine. None of this is mine. My father is not mine - not in that way. His death and what he's done are not mine. Nor are my upbringing nor my town nor its tragedies. How can these things be mine? Holding me responsible for keeping hidden this information is ridiculous. I was born into a town and a family and the town and my family happened to me. I own none of it. It is everyone's. It is shareware. I like it, I like having been a part of it, I would kill or die to protect those who were part of it, but I do not claim exclusivity. Have it. Take it from me. Do with it what you will. Make it useful. This is like making electricity from dirt; it is almost too good to be believed, that we can make beauty from this stuff.
But what about privacy?
Cheap, overabundant, easily gotten, lost, regained, bought, sold.
Bu what about exploitation? Exhibitionism?
Are you Catholic?
No.
Then why are you talking about exhibitionism? It's a ridiculous term. Someone wants to celebrate their existence and you call it exhibitionism. It's niggardly. If you don't want anyone to know about your existence, you might as well kill yourself. You're taking up space, air.
What about dignity?
You will die, and when you die, you will know a profound lack of it. it's never dignified, always brutal. What's dignified about dying? It's never dignified. And in obscurity? Offensive. Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves. And it's fleeting and incredibly mercurial. And subjective. So fuck it.
Monday, September 06, 2004
Book dilemmas
Here's my problem: I've got the first half (probably) of my story, or maybe the first Act, plus several potential endings. But what came to me originally as a simple set up - a setting, a certain image, the essential characters, a single ending - has turned into much more, and the possibilities have multiplied to the point where I can't control them, or decide between them. At least, I'm not willing to make the choices yet. Now I have several options, some of which I have outlined as follows:
1. Stick with the original idea, true to the original visions (and really, they were visions), and move things toward an ending which I think will be universally unsatisfying.
2. Impose my own moral sense on the outcome. I'm not talking about a trite 'good over evil' scenario, but more something to do with balance and the damage we cause ourselves by our lack of it.
3. Go for the 'good over evil' scenario - though, because I'm me, it would end up being a bloody horror, and the 'goody' would end up feeling guilty and laden with moral responsibility because of his victory. What can I say? I hate heroes.
4. Go for the New Age Happy Ending, where everyone ends up 'evolving', and working together for the common good. I think my tone has already betrayed my misgivings about this one, despite the fact that it really did cross my mind.
5. The David Lynch Ending (suggested by someone), where we are forced to consider that one of the main characters was actually one of the other characters (also or instead or sometimes), and that possibly what we think has happened may not have, or at least not the way it was told, or maybe it did, but nobody who it happened to saw it that way. And something to do with sycamore trees.
6. At the peak of the climax where final decisions must be made... it was all a dream! And the writer gets out of bed, makes coffee and notes down some ideas for his new novel...
7. It turns out that Dave Eggers is writing the novel, and so the list above, including this note (#7), is inserted at a crucial turning point, along with a long analysis of the connections between the story and my life, and my issues with my parents. Finally I go with the totally tragic, generally unsatisfying ending, but I justify it very well in a 38-page footnote, with diagrams, and a Mail Order offer of a rebate on the portion of the cover price equivalent to my percentage to anyone who is unsatisfied.
8. Okay, I'm just making up these options now. Suggestions welcomed.
1. Stick with the original idea, true to the original visions (and really, they were visions), and move things toward an ending which I think will be universally unsatisfying.
2. Impose my own moral sense on the outcome. I'm not talking about a trite 'good over evil' scenario, but more something to do with balance and the damage we cause ourselves by our lack of it.
3. Go for the 'good over evil' scenario - though, because I'm me, it would end up being a bloody horror, and the 'goody' would end up feeling guilty and laden with moral responsibility because of his victory. What can I say? I hate heroes.
4. Go for the New Age Happy Ending, where everyone ends up 'evolving', and working together for the common good. I think my tone has already betrayed my misgivings about this one, despite the fact that it really did cross my mind.
5. The David Lynch Ending (suggested by someone), where we are forced to consider that one of the main characters was actually one of the other characters (also or instead or sometimes), and that possibly what we think has happened may not have, or at least not the way it was told, or maybe it did, but nobody who it happened to saw it that way. And something to do with sycamore trees.
6. At the peak of the climax where final decisions must be made... it was all a dream! And the writer gets out of bed, makes coffee and notes down some ideas for his new novel...
7. It turns out that Dave Eggers is writing the novel, and so the list above, including this note (#7), is inserted at a crucial turning point, along with a long analysis of the connections between the story and my life, and my issues with my parents. Finally I go with the totally tragic, generally unsatisfying ending, but I justify it very well in a 38-page footnote, with diagrams, and a Mail Order offer of a rebate on the portion of the cover price equivalent to my percentage to anyone who is unsatisfied.
8. Okay, I'm just making up these options now. Suggestions welcomed.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Re: "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers
I don't like criticism as its practiced professionally, and I've said I don't want to use this space to hand it out. I'm going to try and find ways to talk about other people's work and how it's affected me without losing sight of the fact that they had the courage to do it, which is more than I can say. However, I do consider myself a writer (despite lack of abundant proof), and I do spend a lot of time thinking about writing, about how I do things, how I should do things, about the way things should be done. Therefore, I would be dishonest if I didn't discuss the Work in Question in terms of artistic decisions made, and why I would or wouldn't have made the same choices.
In the Work in Question, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, or AHWOSG, Dave Eggers goes heavy on style and device. Style is something I always find influential, for better or worse (I can feel his style creeping in as I'm writing, and I'm fighting against it - but this parenthesis is an example of it). His style is invasive, in that it's so close to the kind of chatter that happens in my head. And, if I find my mental sentences get shorter and more terse when I read Hemingway, he is easier to shake off than someone who's paranoia is so similar to my own. Two points awarded to Dave Eggers: one for creating a clear and recognizable voice, and another for getting into the head of his character - and getting his head into my head. The problem with that is that the paranoid, fun, silly, self-reflective, hyper-critical ego-talk that goes on in my head drives me crazy; I often wish it would shut up, and I confess that I often wish Mr. Eggers would, too. And yet I keep reading.
I'm very glad that Dave Eggers wrote this book in the way he did, and that he did it well. I'm glad because it's a good story, told in a way that stands out, and I'm glad because he has saved me the trouble of trying to do something that way, and finding out that I really don't want to. The story could stand on its own, without all the self-consciousness, and it would have been readable, moving, maybe even heartbreaking, but not really all that interesting. It might have been Story but not Art. The way of telling it is original, but not THAT original - 150 years ago the Romantics were playing with the characters addressing the reader directly, or the audience, as in Peer Gynt, when Ibsen has one character say "One cannot die in the middle of Act Five." Still, it's good for a laugh and gives that pleasurable moment of mental shift as one sees things from two different points of view - invisible participant and reader - at once. Kind of like certain psychedelic experiences. That is only one of his devices, and one of the most obvious.
Eggers is brave to go head to head with some of the conceits of novel-writing, and especially of memoirs, and this is one reason his book is capital-A Art. The manipulation of characters - especially those based on real people - and the manipulation of the reader, the arrangement of scenes, the very right of the author to think he's so clever that he can tell the reader something: all these raise questions that need to be asked, and he asks and attempts to answer them within and around the text. He gets very involved in imaginary dialogues, haranguing himself for his artistic choices and trying to justify them. In some ways I admire this as bravery, and as a conceptual device showing the layers of paint beneath the picture on the surface. On the other hand, it also comes off as cowardly: his attempts to head off any criticism, or to tear himself to shreds for his choices before anyone else can, stop him from making clear and precise statements. Given his claim in the Appendix about looking the reader straight in they eye and just telling them something, he spends a lot of time building up to and then explaining or apologizing for anything he says. I think of a song on the latest Treatment album which comes down to the simple line, "You lied to me, and that hurts." Eggers rarely allows himself the simplicity of such an avowal. There are a few exceptions, and they are enjoyable (see quotes below). I much more admire those who make simple and honest statements and let them stand, damn the consequences. It's understood by most readers, I think, that if you're making the statement, you've spent some time thinking about it, about possible criticism it may receive, alternative points of view, and so on, and have decided, as an artist, that this is best statement you have to offer right now, and that it belongs there. If people don't understand, it's probably their problem, and if not, you can try again later. Writing down your every thought and fear regarding a statement is not only distracting, it's annoying. The most annoying thing about it is that it reminds me of me, in that I overthink things to such a degree they never get started, let alone finished, and I'm so terrified of criticism, I keep rewriting what I have in different versions that please a certain editor in my head, until I'm left with nothing, which is what those mental editors really want. The difference is that Eggers does all his dancing around but still eventually gets on with the story, gets it finished & published, writes the appendix for the paperback edition and gets on with his life.
The other cowardly aspect is his attacks on real or imagined critics in his notes and appendix, telling them to lighten up, telling them they don't get him or his work. Can someone so reflective have not thought that readers might be able to see through him, saying, 'You know what? Your humour is just another front. We know the tricks, and we've seen them before in our college newspapers. If you didn't want to be taken seriously, you wouldn't have put thousands of hours into a serious artistic project and made it to come to our attention."
So would it have been better to avoid all the gut-twisting self-consciousness of the narrative? Not all of it. Some of it is fun, or funny, and pleasurable to read. But I would have preferred the balance shifted toward the earnest end of the scale. I assess things by the way they make me feel as well as they way they make me think, and reading AHWOSG made me feel like I was skimming the inexplicably hard surface of a deep lake. I can see the depth, I know it's there, I want to go down into it and explore it, but I keep bouncing off this shiny surface. In the end, I've been given a lot to think about, but I feel like I've been robbed of the emotional experience. I feel like the promise of the opening chapter is never delivered (the opening chapter of narrative, not the lengthy and humourous acknowledgments and so on: the sarcasm, self-consciousness, and multiple-layered intellectual torsion gets delivered in full). The times when he gets close are so exciting: I feel like, "Here it comes, the point where he's really going to take us inside the experience!", but then the lights come up and we are forced to consider, again, that it's all an illusion. We're left with a story about someone telling a story, and he is forced to tell us that he's enraged, or guilty, or sad, but he won't actually take us there or show us.
So that's his business, and that's my opinion. Dave Eggers made his choices, and I greatly admire him for making them. The work deserves recognition just for that. His aims were daring, and he manages to balance an undertaking that threatens to implode from the beginning, and he makes it to the end without losing me. Intellectually it comes off reasonably sound for me - I can accept being left with more questions than answers, and probably prefer it that way - but emotionally, I feel ripped off, and that's where the experience matters to me.
The worst thing is that, having been shortlisted for the Pulitzer and sold many copies, it will encourage attention-wanters with typewriters to attempt the same thing, and no doubt publishers will publish them, and we'll be stuck with many clumsier versions of the same thing. Hell, we already have magazines full of that kind of writing. The good thing is that his notes to readers, encouraging them to write down their memoirs, will no doubt lead to a great deal of cathartic exercise for many people, and maybe some great stories will be told. At the very least, it's a nice thing to do, encouraging people to tell their story after you've told yours, and it does encourage me. Dave Eggers is a self-critical cynic, and he got over himself enough to write his story, so why can't I? Thanks, Dave.
In the Work in Question, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, or AHWOSG, Dave Eggers goes heavy on style and device. Style is something I always find influential, for better or worse (I can feel his style creeping in as I'm writing, and I'm fighting against it - but this parenthesis is an example of it). His style is invasive, in that it's so close to the kind of chatter that happens in my head. And, if I find my mental sentences get shorter and more terse when I read Hemingway, he is easier to shake off than someone who's paranoia is so similar to my own. Two points awarded to Dave Eggers: one for creating a clear and recognizable voice, and another for getting into the head of his character - and getting his head into my head. The problem with that is that the paranoid, fun, silly, self-reflective, hyper-critical ego-talk that goes on in my head drives me crazy; I often wish it would shut up, and I confess that I often wish Mr. Eggers would, too. And yet I keep reading.
I'm very glad that Dave Eggers wrote this book in the way he did, and that he did it well. I'm glad because it's a good story, told in a way that stands out, and I'm glad because he has saved me the trouble of trying to do something that way, and finding out that I really don't want to. The story could stand on its own, without all the self-consciousness, and it would have been readable, moving, maybe even heartbreaking, but not really all that interesting. It might have been Story but not Art. The way of telling it is original, but not THAT original - 150 years ago the Romantics were playing with the characters addressing the reader directly, or the audience, as in Peer Gynt, when Ibsen has one character say "One cannot die in the middle of Act Five." Still, it's good for a laugh and gives that pleasurable moment of mental shift as one sees things from two different points of view - invisible participant and reader - at once. Kind of like certain psychedelic experiences. That is only one of his devices, and one of the most obvious.
Eggers is brave to go head to head with some of the conceits of novel-writing, and especially of memoirs, and this is one reason his book is capital-A Art. The manipulation of characters - especially those based on real people - and the manipulation of the reader, the arrangement of scenes, the very right of the author to think he's so clever that he can tell the reader something: all these raise questions that need to be asked, and he asks and attempts to answer them within and around the text. He gets very involved in imaginary dialogues, haranguing himself for his artistic choices and trying to justify them. In some ways I admire this as bravery, and as a conceptual device showing the layers of paint beneath the picture on the surface. On the other hand, it also comes off as cowardly: his attempts to head off any criticism, or to tear himself to shreds for his choices before anyone else can, stop him from making clear and precise statements. Given his claim in the Appendix about looking the reader straight in they eye and just telling them something, he spends a lot of time building up to and then explaining or apologizing for anything he says. I think of a song on the latest Treatment album which comes down to the simple line, "You lied to me, and that hurts." Eggers rarely allows himself the simplicity of such an avowal. There are a few exceptions, and they are enjoyable (see quotes below). I much more admire those who make simple and honest statements and let them stand, damn the consequences. It's understood by most readers, I think, that if you're making the statement, you've spent some time thinking about it, about possible criticism it may receive, alternative points of view, and so on, and have decided, as an artist, that this is best statement you have to offer right now, and that it belongs there. If people don't understand, it's probably their problem, and if not, you can try again later. Writing down your every thought and fear regarding a statement is not only distracting, it's annoying. The most annoying thing about it is that it reminds me of me, in that I overthink things to such a degree they never get started, let alone finished, and I'm so terrified of criticism, I keep rewriting what I have in different versions that please a certain editor in my head, until I'm left with nothing, which is what those mental editors really want. The difference is that Eggers does all his dancing around but still eventually gets on with the story, gets it finished & published, writes the appendix for the paperback edition and gets on with his life.
The other cowardly aspect is his attacks on real or imagined critics in his notes and appendix, telling them to lighten up, telling them they don't get him or his work. Can someone so reflective have not thought that readers might be able to see through him, saying, 'You know what? Your humour is just another front. We know the tricks, and we've seen them before in our college newspapers. If you didn't want to be taken seriously, you wouldn't have put thousands of hours into a serious artistic project and made it to come to our attention."
So would it have been better to avoid all the gut-twisting self-consciousness of the narrative? Not all of it. Some of it is fun, or funny, and pleasurable to read. But I would have preferred the balance shifted toward the earnest end of the scale. I assess things by the way they make me feel as well as they way they make me think, and reading AHWOSG made me feel like I was skimming the inexplicably hard surface of a deep lake. I can see the depth, I know it's there, I want to go down into it and explore it, but I keep bouncing off this shiny surface. In the end, I've been given a lot to think about, but I feel like I've been robbed of the emotional experience. I feel like the promise of the opening chapter is never delivered (the opening chapter of narrative, not the lengthy and humourous acknowledgments and so on: the sarcasm, self-consciousness, and multiple-layered intellectual torsion gets delivered in full). The times when he gets close are so exciting: I feel like, "Here it comes, the point where he's really going to take us inside the experience!", but then the lights come up and we are forced to consider, again, that it's all an illusion. We're left with a story about someone telling a story, and he is forced to tell us that he's enraged, or guilty, or sad, but he won't actually take us there or show us.
So that's his business, and that's my opinion. Dave Eggers made his choices, and I greatly admire him for making them. The work deserves recognition just for that. His aims were daring, and he manages to balance an undertaking that threatens to implode from the beginning, and he makes it to the end without losing me. Intellectually it comes off reasonably sound for me - I can accept being left with more questions than answers, and probably prefer it that way - but emotionally, I feel ripped off, and that's where the experience matters to me.
The worst thing is that, having been shortlisted for the Pulitzer and sold many copies, it will encourage attention-wanters with typewriters to attempt the same thing, and no doubt publishers will publish them, and we'll be stuck with many clumsier versions of the same thing. Hell, we already have magazines full of that kind of writing. The good thing is that his notes to readers, encouraging them to write down their memoirs, will no doubt lead to a great deal of cathartic exercise for many people, and maybe some great stories will be told. At the very least, it's a nice thing to do, encouraging people to tell their story after you've told yours, and it does encourage me. Dave Eggers is a self-critical cynic, and he got over himself enough to write his story, so why can't I? Thanks, Dave.
Monday, April 19, 2004
intentions
In general I'm not interested in blogs.
I read Jeff's (http://anisotropic.net) because I like to keep track of where he is and where he's at. I've flipped through William Gibson's (http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp) because I'm a fan and would read his laundry list if he published it. I occasionally get pointed at various news and political blogs by friends and aquaintances, and I browse some at ZMag (http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm).
Most blogs out there seem to be aimless drivel - the mental equivalent of my least favourite (in other people) bodily functions. I don't even like the word 'blog'. Reminds me of the Aussie word for the place where most of the above-mentioned bodily functions normally happen.
Who bloody cares? Who cares about this guy's masturbatory fantasies, this girl's high school dramas, this programmer's endless lines of code? Who cares what I think of blogs? (Oooo, that was ironically self-conscious & postmodern of me to point the finger back at myself, wasn't it?)
I think my answer is that it doesn't matter. People have the right to express all the pathos of their lives in whatever way they know best, and they have the right to call it an ugly name like 'blog' if they want. I have the right to read it or not. But that 'who bloody cares' and 'why bother' attitude resembles a lazy slug oozing out of me; a lazy, self-loathing slimebeast that can't be bothered to do anything and hates itself for never accomplishing anything - especially those things it would most like to do, like express itself.
In case you've bothered to read this far through this entry, here are my intentions, as promised in the subject line:
I want to write about the things I enjoy most, which are books, movies, and ideas. Maybe music, too.
I've already taken a brief shot at commenting on a film, as added comments to someone else's critique, but I don't want to be a critic in the sense of putting a 'good' or 'bad' value on a work. I'd prefer to discuss my own reactions: where the film took me emotionally, experientially, and philosophically.
The same goes goes for books, but I'm also more interested in technique.
I've also thought about putting my dream log on line, just to see what kind of feedback I'd get. But I'm not sure I'm brave enough to have all my Freudian snakes-in-tunnels out on the web where any analyst, weirdo, plagiarist, or member of my family might access it. We'll see.
I've also got an idea for a creative project based on a weblog, but those who know me will know that most of my creative ideas stay in the Realm of the Ideal.
Based on what I've written today, there seems to be a good chance that I will also spout my opinions on general topics. I apologize in advance, but self-expression is supposed to be good for the spleen.
These intentions will be interesting to compare to the entity this becomes. You can post my own intentions back to me if I end up adding to the world's boredom supply with daily ruminations on my favourite tea and rhyming poetry about my cat.
I read Jeff's (http://anisotropic.net) because I like to keep track of where he is and where he's at. I've flipped through William Gibson's (http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp) because I'm a fan and would read his laundry list if he published it. I occasionally get pointed at various news and political blogs by friends and aquaintances, and I browse some at ZMag (http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm).
Most blogs out there seem to be aimless drivel - the mental equivalent of my least favourite (in other people) bodily functions. I don't even like the word 'blog'. Reminds me of the Aussie word for the place where most of the above-mentioned bodily functions normally happen.
Who bloody cares? Who cares about this guy's masturbatory fantasies, this girl's high school dramas, this programmer's endless lines of code? Who cares what I think of blogs? (Oooo, that was ironically self-conscious & postmodern of me to point the finger back at myself, wasn't it?)
I think my answer is that it doesn't matter. People have the right to express all the pathos of their lives in whatever way they know best, and they have the right to call it an ugly name like 'blog' if they want. I have the right to read it or not. But that 'who bloody cares' and 'why bother' attitude resembles a lazy slug oozing out of me; a lazy, self-loathing slimebeast that can't be bothered to do anything and hates itself for never accomplishing anything - especially those things it would most like to do, like express itself.
In case you've bothered to read this far through this entry, here are my intentions, as promised in the subject line:
I want to write about the things I enjoy most, which are books, movies, and ideas. Maybe music, too.
I've already taken a brief shot at commenting on a film, as added comments to someone else's critique, but I don't want to be a critic in the sense of putting a 'good' or 'bad' value on a work. I'd prefer to discuss my own reactions: where the film took me emotionally, experientially, and philosophically.
The same goes goes for books, but I'm also more interested in technique.
I've also thought about putting my dream log on line, just to see what kind of feedback I'd get. But I'm not sure I'm brave enough to have all my Freudian snakes-in-tunnels out on the web where any analyst, weirdo, plagiarist, or member of my family might access it. We'll see.
I've also got an idea for a creative project based on a weblog, but those who know me will know that most of my creative ideas stay in the Realm of the Ideal.
Based on what I've written today, there seems to be a good chance that I will also spout my opinions on general topics. I apologize in advance, but self-expression is supposed to be good for the spleen.
These intentions will be interesting to compare to the entity this becomes. You can post my own intentions back to me if I end up adding to the world's boredom supply with daily ruminations on my favourite tea and rhyming poetry about my cat.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)