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."
Thursday, September 09, 2004
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.
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