I got the "Justice League" movie (direct-to-DVD) and was pleasantly surprised by it -- much of the Bruce Timm-directed production team was involved with it, despite the different animators, and the result was very solid. My boys LOVE the movie, and I've watched it a couple of times, think it was fun, well-done. Not treading new ground, storywise, but it was marvelously well-executed and fun. A lot of in-jokes for comic book fanboys and -girls, but it was a compelling work, and I look forward to seeing what else Bruce Timm and company turn out. They have making good animated superhero stuff down pat!
"Push," an ostensibly SF paranormal thriller (involving superhumans) had some arresting images and at least a theoretically usable premise, but it didn't fully cohere the way it needed to -- the whole didn't equal the sum of its parts, and one of the characters (played inertly by Camilla Belle, who appears to have taken the Katie Holmes School of Acting to heart) is a big drag on the overall story. It could have been a good thriller, but I think it got out from under the creators of it, and didn't fully deliver. I think my favorite sequences involved the Screamers/Bleeders, who had a sonic scream attack...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwaiD8ZVYOU
Although the precognitive Watchers were also interesting. Surprisingly, Dakota Fanning did a good job in her role as one of the Watchers (although she was distractingly hunchy -- is that just her being "in character" or does she always have such rotten posture?) She's kind of a pint-sized Kate Hudson, and her relationship with lead character "Nick" (played by Chris Evans) was more convincing that the cobbled-together love interest Evans was supposed to have with Camilla Belle's wooden character (who reminded me of Selma Blair's "Why Is She In This Movie?" role in HELLBOY).
"Coraline" is the latest Neil Gaiman triumph -- and I say that as a bad thing -- I'm not a fan of Neil Gaiman's work. He's just too British for me, too affected, too something. Some people love his work, his dark fairyland, gothic-infused mentality -- the same folks who worship Tim Burton worship Neil Gaiman as their Tolstoy. But it doesn't quite ring true for me -- his work doesn't reach me, and I can't exactly say why. Something about his writing style, his sensibility, something. The technical achievement of the movie outweighs the larger themes of it, in my view -- a movie that's fun to watch but which doesn't particularly deliver the goods. I just kind of watched it, enjoyed it after a fashion (despite the constant, cloying British eccentricity routinely demonstrated by the supposedly American characters in it).
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
The Day of Cosmic Comedy
Today's my birthday!
According to "The Secret Language of Birthdays," today is The Day of Cosmic Comedy, which is actually pretty appropriate, for those who know me. I laugh early, and I laugh often, I laugh with, and I laugh at. I can get very nearly anybody to laugh (except for supreme assholes, fussbudgets, and sourpusses, who get annoyed at my sense of humor). The name of this day amuses me, too, because I often joke about how the Cosmos is having a laugh with me.
Some famous birthday fellow travelers: Charlie Chaplin, Peter Ustinov, Henry Mancini, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Ellen Barkin, Herbie Mann.
According to "The Secret Language of Birthdays," today is The Day of Cosmic Comedy, which is actually pretty appropriate, for those who know me. I laugh early, and I laugh often, I laugh with, and I laugh at. I can get very nearly anybody to laugh (except for supreme assholes, fussbudgets, and sourpusses, who get annoyed at my sense of humor). The name of this day amuses me, too, because I often joke about how the Cosmos is having a laugh with me.
Some famous birthday fellow travelers: Charlie Chaplin, Peter Ustinov, Henry Mancini, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Ellen Barkin, Herbie Mann.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Holding Back the Years
This is the song I was alluding to the other day -- the original "Holding Back the Years" by the Frantic Elevators (who?) -- the punk band Simply Red singer Mike Hucknall was in before attaining Blue-Eyed Soul superstardom with his syrupy remake...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-L8hlgkGmo
I love this original. It is beautiful and forlorn and wistful, and has more than a trace of a Bowie vibe to it. It's funny to me, because I've mocked the Simply Red tune for almost as long as I've paid attention to music (as symptomatic of what, exactly? I don't know what -- Spandau Ballet's "True" conjures up almost the same kind of loathing in me -- is it sentimentality? Faux-new romanticism? I don't know), but the original is a very impressive song.
It is striking to me, just how a slightly different arrangement can lead to such a rich reward, how a slight change can create such monumental improvements in something. Of course, Hucknall ladled on the soulful treacle on this beautifully barren original and parlayed into a massive hit for him, but the original is amazing.
So, I put this song up as the last tune of my 30s, to show how the same song can yield such amazing results (and improvements) with just a little tweaking. It'll be that way with my life from now on. I don't regret my past -- so much of what makes me who I am comes from that past, but I'd be lying if I didn't think that while I experienced great things in my 30s (largely centered around fatherhood and my two wonderful sons, and also finally, truly getting serious about my writing), I feel that my life has only just begun. It's a cliché, the whole "life begins at 40" idea, but maybe there's some truth to it.
A chapter of my youth is closing, and a chapter in my adulthood is beginning. I've felt some amazing, life-changing things in the past decade, and feel that, for the first time in my life, I'm being truly who I am, for better or worse! Onward toward 40. I face it without regret or fear or sorrow. I'm hopeful and I'm happy.
Anyway, enjoy the tune. I know I sure did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-L8hlgkGmo
I love this original. It is beautiful and forlorn and wistful, and has more than a trace of a Bowie vibe to it. It's funny to me, because I've mocked the Simply Red tune for almost as long as I've paid attention to music (as symptomatic of what, exactly? I don't know what -- Spandau Ballet's "True" conjures up almost the same kind of loathing in me -- is it sentimentality? Faux-new romanticism? I don't know), but the original is a very impressive song.
It is striking to me, just how a slightly different arrangement can lead to such a rich reward, how a slight change can create such monumental improvements in something. Of course, Hucknall ladled on the soulful treacle on this beautifully barren original and parlayed into a massive hit for him, but the original is amazing.
So, I put this song up as the last tune of my 30s, to show how the same song can yield such amazing results (and improvements) with just a little tweaking. It'll be that way with my life from now on. I don't regret my past -- so much of what makes me who I am comes from that past, but I'd be lying if I didn't think that while I experienced great things in my 30s (largely centered around fatherhood and my two wonderful sons, and also finally, truly getting serious about my writing), I feel that my life has only just begun. It's a cliché, the whole "life begins at 40" idea, but maybe there's some truth to it.
A chapter of my youth is closing, and a chapter in my adulthood is beginning. I've felt some amazing, life-changing things in the past decade, and feel that, for the first time in my life, I'm being truly who I am, for better or worse! Onward toward 40. I face it without regret or fear or sorrow. I'm hopeful and I'm happy.
Anyway, enjoy the tune. I know I sure did.
Meteorology and Public Anomie
Apparently a meteor shot over the Midwest last night, roughly around the time I went to bed. I missed it, but the pix of it over Madison, WI looked impressive...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36559622/ns/technology_and_science-space/
I'm kinda peevish that I missed it. I was pretty tired, though, and guess I conked when this sucker flew over! I think meteors are maybe good omens, contrasted with comets, which are, historically, seen as bad omens. So, there you go.
Today's my last day of being a 30-something! Woo hoo! I thought of that at the Mission of Burma show Saturday, like "Wow, this is my last show as a 30-something." (I think Guided By Voices in 2001 was my first show as a 30-something).
Tomorrow, I'm taking a day off of work, and going to get my hair cut, gonna take care of the boys, gonna get groceries, gonna make myself a birthday cake (DIY! DIY!) and will catch "Kick-Ass" and maybe go out for a round of drinks in the evening. Nothing fancy. Low-key, compared with my 39th birthday celebration bash at the tiki bar last year, but for me, that seems right -- like the last 30-something birthday should have more weight than the first 40-something birthday, I dunno. Just feels intuitively right.
This weekend, I'm taking B1 to his soccer game Saturday (with B2 in tow), and am going to finish transcribing the screenplay (and then the odious task of noting the plot and ensuring that the plot points flow smoothly, all of that -- screenwriting leaves you no wiggle room on that -- every plot point must matter, so I need to map that all out and get it right. I may tape it to the wall or something, so I can see it all in one place -- index cards, that kinda thing. My boys'll love that, I'm sure, and'll start taping things to the walls. I just know it. Oh, and I'll get the boys' and my bikes spruced up and ready for biking season. I'm looking forward to that.
I think I may represent a kind of retrograde conception of manhood to the younger set. It's kind of funny with me, at work. I'm a strongly progressive soul, and am definitely more of a libertine than many of the people I work with (although I think maybe they don't realize it, because I'm "old") -- but it's funny, too. Most of the people I work with on a peer-to-peer basis are 20-somethings, not Gen Xers, and I think I'm very different from them. Like socially, and normatively, they speak a different language than I do. I think I'm harder-edged, more cynical, more sarcastic than they are. They are more pack-oriented, less comfortable going it alone. It's kind of weird. It reminds me of how, say, a Brat Packer or a Mod might've seemed to a group of hippies -- like retro and strange. I think that's the case.
I think the advent of texting and other technological means of corresponding has adversely impacted communication -- the younger folks are less adroit conversationalists -- less to say, and less interesting things to say. It's kind of curious to observe in action. Easily distractable, short attention spans, not much patience, and other things that I think result from changes in the way people communicate. Not only do I not really talk to them; I kind of find myself not wanting to, either. And it's not even anything personal -- it's just a kind of odd emptiness in human interactions I see that wasn't quite there before. Maybe X was the last conversational generation -- the last generation where you actually had to talk to people around you, versus relying on texting and other media to do the talking for you.
It's not necessarily a value judgment -- it's just a reflection on how things have changed. And I think conceptions of masculinity have changed, too. I think perhaps in the 90s, classic conceptions of masculinity were subverted (I think unintentionally), and many guys went "emo" because appearing too strongly masculine was perhaps seen as threatening. It's funny, because I'm not a macho guy by any means -- I'm quietly masculine, strongly sexual, but not overbearing in that regard -- but, compared with the 20-something guys I work with, I'm like a bull (haha, or a woolly ram, perhaps), snorting and stomping. At some point in our culture, being masculine was somehow seen as a bad thing. Being very alert and socially aware, I'm conscious of that, not wanting to stomp on coworkers' toes. Maybe it's part of being a Big Guy(tm) -- like there is an implicit threat in being a Big Buy that can appear threatening to people in general, I'm not sure. But I feel like where it never came up with my Gen X peers, I kind of see that vibe with the Gen Y people I work with. Being a strong individual in a pack-oriented culture, too, might be part of it.
Maybe it's because of the gradual outing of gay culture in the 90s and the rise of Emo or something, younger guys weren't really left with any workable model of manhood to put to use, and so they either stay permaboys, or else just kind of flounder. Like I notice in the parlance, the 20-something women habitually refer to guys as "boys" and themselves as "girls" -- there is almost a pejorative connotation with "man" and "woman" in language these days. Like a self-consciousness, where the women are girls and the men are boys -- or maybe it's simply a side effect of an infantilized culture where nobody really has to grow up.
I'm not entirely sure. It's just something I've observed. Almost none of the 20-somethings I work with are in long-term relationships, almost none of them have had kids -- while they claim to want a proper relationship, the idea of parenting seems horrifying and alien to them, the idea of a relationship seems to strike them as too much work for too little payoff, quite beyond their expectations of life. It's a curious thing to observe, from my vantage point of a Gen X parent of two who's getting divorced, surrounded by Gen Y people who likely haven't even given a stray thought to even marrying anybody, let alone raising kids or divorcing somebody.
How is a future built in a world like that, full of alienated people who just randomly bounce off one another like pinballs? Where seemingly obvious ideas like "conversation" and "dating" and "relationship" and even "love" seem quaint and unfamiliar and alien and perhaps even threatening? In a bizarre way, it feels like the final triumph of the consumerist culture, to the final detriment of mankind as a social animal. I just wonder where these people will be in another five years, what they will do, and what that'll mean for the larger culture.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36559622/ns/technology_and_science-space/
I'm kinda peevish that I missed it. I was pretty tired, though, and guess I conked when this sucker flew over! I think meteors are maybe good omens, contrasted with comets, which are, historically, seen as bad omens. So, there you go.
Today's my last day of being a 30-something! Woo hoo! I thought of that at the Mission of Burma show Saturday, like "Wow, this is my last show as a 30-something." (I think Guided By Voices in 2001 was my first show as a 30-something).
Tomorrow, I'm taking a day off of work, and going to get my hair cut, gonna take care of the boys, gonna get groceries, gonna make myself a birthday cake (DIY! DIY!) and will catch "Kick-Ass" and maybe go out for a round of drinks in the evening. Nothing fancy. Low-key, compared with my 39th birthday celebration bash at the tiki bar last year, but for me, that seems right -- like the last 30-something birthday should have more weight than the first 40-something birthday, I dunno. Just feels intuitively right.
This weekend, I'm taking B1 to his soccer game Saturday (with B2 in tow), and am going to finish transcribing the screenplay (and then the odious task of noting the plot and ensuring that the plot points flow smoothly, all of that -- screenwriting leaves you no wiggle room on that -- every plot point must matter, so I need to map that all out and get it right. I may tape it to the wall or something, so I can see it all in one place -- index cards, that kinda thing. My boys'll love that, I'm sure, and'll start taping things to the walls. I just know it. Oh, and I'll get the boys' and my bikes spruced up and ready for biking season. I'm looking forward to that.
I think I may represent a kind of retrograde conception of manhood to the younger set. It's kind of funny with me, at work. I'm a strongly progressive soul, and am definitely more of a libertine than many of the people I work with (although I think maybe they don't realize it, because I'm "old") -- but it's funny, too. Most of the people I work with on a peer-to-peer basis are 20-somethings, not Gen Xers, and I think I'm very different from them. Like socially, and normatively, they speak a different language than I do. I think I'm harder-edged, more cynical, more sarcastic than they are. They are more pack-oriented, less comfortable going it alone. It's kind of weird. It reminds me of how, say, a Brat Packer or a Mod might've seemed to a group of hippies -- like retro and strange. I think that's the case.
I think the advent of texting and other technological means of corresponding has adversely impacted communication -- the younger folks are less adroit conversationalists -- less to say, and less interesting things to say. It's kind of curious to observe in action. Easily distractable, short attention spans, not much patience, and other things that I think result from changes in the way people communicate. Not only do I not really talk to them; I kind of find myself not wanting to, either. And it's not even anything personal -- it's just a kind of odd emptiness in human interactions I see that wasn't quite there before. Maybe X was the last conversational generation -- the last generation where you actually had to talk to people around you, versus relying on texting and other media to do the talking for you.
It's not necessarily a value judgment -- it's just a reflection on how things have changed. And I think conceptions of masculinity have changed, too. I think perhaps in the 90s, classic conceptions of masculinity were subverted (I think unintentionally), and many guys went "emo" because appearing too strongly masculine was perhaps seen as threatening. It's funny, because I'm not a macho guy by any means -- I'm quietly masculine, strongly sexual, but not overbearing in that regard -- but, compared with the 20-something guys I work with, I'm like a bull (haha, or a woolly ram, perhaps), snorting and stomping. At some point in our culture, being masculine was somehow seen as a bad thing. Being very alert and socially aware, I'm conscious of that, not wanting to stomp on coworkers' toes. Maybe it's part of being a Big Guy(tm) -- like there is an implicit threat in being a Big Buy that can appear threatening to people in general, I'm not sure. But I feel like where it never came up with my Gen X peers, I kind of see that vibe with the Gen Y people I work with. Being a strong individual in a pack-oriented culture, too, might be part of it.
Maybe it's because of the gradual outing of gay culture in the 90s and the rise of Emo or something, younger guys weren't really left with any workable model of manhood to put to use, and so they either stay permaboys, or else just kind of flounder. Like I notice in the parlance, the 20-something women habitually refer to guys as "boys" and themselves as "girls" -- there is almost a pejorative connotation with "man" and "woman" in language these days. Like a self-consciousness, where the women are girls and the men are boys -- or maybe it's simply a side effect of an infantilized culture where nobody really has to grow up.
I'm not entirely sure. It's just something I've observed. Almost none of the 20-somethings I work with are in long-term relationships, almost none of them have had kids -- while they claim to want a proper relationship, the idea of parenting seems horrifying and alien to them, the idea of a relationship seems to strike them as too much work for too little payoff, quite beyond their expectations of life. It's a curious thing to observe, from my vantage point of a Gen X parent of two who's getting divorced, surrounded by Gen Y people who likely haven't even given a stray thought to even marrying anybody, let alone raising kids or divorcing somebody.
How is a future built in a world like that, full of alienated people who just randomly bounce off one another like pinballs? Where seemingly obvious ideas like "conversation" and "dating" and "relationship" and even "love" seem quaint and unfamiliar and alien and perhaps even threatening? In a bizarre way, it feels like the final triumph of the consumerist culture, to the final detriment of mankind as a social animal. I just wonder where these people will be in another five years, what they will do, and what that'll mean for the larger culture.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Speaking of Punk
There's a song I'm going to post on my birthday (Friday) that just seems so right. It's ironic for me, because it just shows how powerful a slightly different arrangement can be -- a different chord here or there (I lack the language to really explain it, it's all intuitive, but is so different, so much better). It's a wonderful tune, one that I had historically maligned -- not the version I stumbled into (which kills), but the better-known one (which I still loathe). Just funny how much power a song can have, if done slightly differently. I'm chomping at the bit to post it, but I'm waiting until Friday. It's hard to be patient.
Like, OMG!
This should be a law of pop cultural physics, it holds so true: if somebody says how "punk rock" something is (or, worse, "punk rawk") -- that person is a poseur (and in this day and age, far and away from Punk's unmarked grave, it's even more poseurish to be a poseur that way, like to even feel obligated to observe how "punk rock" something is).
Every time I've seen somebody marvel at something (or someone) and say "Oh, X is SO PUNK ROCK." That person who says it is invariably the most scenesterish, hipsterish poser type. They just are. I've observed it a number of times in the long span of years -- the tendency to observe how "punk rock" something was came about really in the mid-90s; before then, stuff was either good or it sucked -- no punk worth their safety pins would even make that observation, because you'd just know intuitively. There wouldn't be the need to narrate it, couch it, and otherwise claim it like that for some kind of unearned legitimacy. I remember working with a coworker who once exclaimed (without irony, for once, as he was a consummate hipster) "I'm punk rock! I pogoed to Superchunk!" That alone is worth a cockpunch, just on general principles.
There is a Zenlike art to it, to the intuitive knowledge of it and the anarchic spirit of it, and the people who try to lay claim to that are wusses in sheep's clothing. Lead, follow, or get out of the fucking way.
It matters because that fauxthenticity (yeah, another of my words) percolates far beyond Punk's long-dead corpse, and into the realm of proper art.
In other news, I'm very disappointed that The Urban Dictionary didn't accept "Daffodildo" as a new word. Wusses. They would have, back in the day. God, I hope they didn't purge "Cuntquistador" from their dictionary. Whew. No, they didn't. That's one of my greatest additions to the English language (along with "Errorgasm," "Gliberal," "Crapdusting," "Chickchismo" [apparently a UD Word of the day in '06], "Driveshaft," and "Vaginocity," to name just a few -- I have many more in there).
Every time I've seen somebody marvel at something (or someone) and say "Oh, X is SO PUNK ROCK." That person who says it is invariably the most scenesterish, hipsterish poser type. They just are. I've observed it a number of times in the long span of years -- the tendency to observe how "punk rock" something was came about really in the mid-90s; before then, stuff was either good or it sucked -- no punk worth their safety pins would even make that observation, because you'd just know intuitively. There wouldn't be the need to narrate it, couch it, and otherwise claim it like that for some kind of unearned legitimacy. I remember working with a coworker who once exclaimed (without irony, for once, as he was a consummate hipster) "I'm punk rock! I pogoed to Superchunk!" That alone is worth a cockpunch, just on general principles.
There is a Zenlike art to it, to the intuitive knowledge of it and the anarchic spirit of it, and the people who try to lay claim to that are wusses in sheep's clothing. Lead, follow, or get out of the fucking way.
It matters because that fauxthenticity (yeah, another of my words) percolates far beyond Punk's long-dead corpse, and into the realm of proper art.
In other news, I'm very disappointed that The Urban Dictionary didn't accept "Daffodildo" as a new word. Wusses. They would have, back in the day. God, I hope they didn't purge "Cuntquistador" from their dictionary. Whew. No, they didn't. That's one of my greatest additions to the English language (along with "Errorgasm," "Gliberal," "Crapdusting," "Chickchismo" [apparently a UD Word of the day in '06], "Driveshaft," and "Vaginocity," to name just a few -- I have many more in there).
Hemingway on Hyenas
Saw this blurb in a SLATE piece on hyenas, and it made me snicker. Ernest Hemingway on hyenas...
"Hermaphroditic, self-eating devourer of the dead, trailer of calving cows, ham-stringer, potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept, sad yowler, camp-follower, stinking, foul with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves …"I love it, especially "potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept" -- bahaha! I imagine him drunkenly penning that, trying to get just the right flow. The above feels like a grumbly trail of invective -- it makes me want to describe various people I know in pithy sequences of description like that.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
You Know My Name
My boys aptly demonstrated last night just how much like me they are -- they were bickering through song, after I'd tucked them in, with Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name" as the melody. I sometimes will talk to them in song, like to get a point across -- our own lil' opera! So, it was something like this (I wish I could remember all of their lyrics, because they were so funny, them trying to spot-weld the words to the melody)...
[B1] pushed me, and he knocked me downThen B1 piped up...
I was so mad at him
I only did it because [B2] punched meeeeThey were going back and forth with their bicker-lyrics, which were slaying me. I let them go awhile, before joining in...
Nobody should be punching or pushing the otherAnd so on.
you guys are brothers, you love each other
Monday, April 12, 2010
Donuts
Oh, and I forgot to mention -- Exene credited the donuts she ate that morning (ones I'd bought, which she'd nicked, although they were intended for the boys) as crucial in her "triumph" yesterday. Which calls to mind THIS in my head...
This and that
I was busy with the boys all day yesterday, took them to the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI), which they loved. I have to credit the MSI on expanding itself and remodeling itself over the years. It's a far greater place than it was in the 90s. The boys had a blast.
I didn't get to finish my transcription, as I was busy with the kids. I'll try to do that this week, as i want to have it done before the weekend. Although I'm not entirely sure if I'll have ironed out the whole structure by then, on revision. We'll see.
Exene placed first in her division on a 5K she ran, and was exceptionally proud of that, repeatedly recounting at length the minutiae of the race. While I think running is a certainly valid form of fitness, hearing about it at length could be used to torture inmates at a secret prison. Just play that on a continuous loop and they'll break. Okay. You ran. You won in your division. Yay. Good job. I look forward to not having to hear about running again -- one of the bonus fruits of having my own place soon enough. Cure for cancer found? Great artwork created? Masterpiece written? Music composed? No? No? No? No? Look me up when you've done that -- and even then, don't explain the process -- just let me see the handiwork, the accomplishment, the achievement -- and let it create something that wasn't there before, let it in some way make the world a more interesting place. Pretty please? It's all I ask.
When I finish a book, I don't do a play-by-play on it; I just finish it, and move onto the next project. There is satisfaction in the creation of something new, but I don't cluck over it. And even with something that I've won, it's incidental to the process for me. I can imagine me winning the Nobel Prize for Literature (hey, I said IMAGINE) and Exene saying "I won a medal, too -- first place for my age division in a 5K!" with no-doubt superior fervor. Maybe I'm just not enough of a diva. Maybe I need to climb a rampart and toot my own horn, for all to hear?
If I'm able to write fiction full-time, I'll be happy with that. If I'm able to create something beautiful and wonderful, I'll be very pleased with that -- but I won't rest on my laurels, won't pat myself on the back. I'm more process-driven than that. "Look what I did!" is not my style. With me, it's more "Did you enjoy what I created?"
I didn't get to finish my transcription, as I was busy with the kids. I'll try to do that this week, as i want to have it done before the weekend. Although I'm not entirely sure if I'll have ironed out the whole structure by then, on revision. We'll see.
Exene placed first in her division on a 5K she ran, and was exceptionally proud of that, repeatedly recounting at length the minutiae of the race. While I think running is a certainly valid form of fitness, hearing about it at length could be used to torture inmates at a secret prison. Just play that on a continuous loop and they'll break. Okay. You ran. You won in your division. Yay. Good job. I look forward to not having to hear about running again -- one of the bonus fruits of having my own place soon enough. Cure for cancer found? Great artwork created? Masterpiece written? Music composed? No? No? No? No? Look me up when you've done that -- and even then, don't explain the process -- just let me see the handiwork, the accomplishment, the achievement -- and let it create something that wasn't there before, let it in some way make the world a more interesting place. Pretty please? It's all I ask.
When I finish a book, I don't do a play-by-play on it; I just finish it, and move onto the next project. There is satisfaction in the creation of something new, but I don't cluck over it. And even with something that I've won, it's incidental to the process for me. I can imagine me winning the Nobel Prize for Literature (hey, I said IMAGINE) and Exene saying "I won a medal, too -- first place for my age division in a 5K!" with no-doubt superior fervor. Maybe I'm just not enough of a diva. Maybe I need to climb a rampart and toot my own horn, for all to hear?
If I'm able to write fiction full-time, I'll be happy with that. If I'm able to create something beautiful and wonderful, I'll be very pleased with that -- but I won't rest on my laurels, won't pat myself on the back. I'm more process-driven than that. "Look what I did!" is not my style. With me, it's more "Did you enjoy what I created?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)