Public-Access Expressionism
And other thoughts I didn’t feel like finishing.
Beauty’s denial—that the ugly don’t learn from what they see.
I don’t recognize the legal status of the 21st century.
Unfinished thought no. 1—The influence of Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop” upon Bruce Springsteen’s “State Trooper” is hard to place; less because of difference in sound than in absence of feeling. The red-and-black-streaked menace of the former is dulled into the ash-and-sepia-coated dread of the latter, as if Bruce could not possibly push further. New Jerseyans shoot to kill, but always with the safety on.
Praise for one’s decorative capacity hides underneath another’s accusation of making veiled threats. A veil for a veil, I guess.
“It’s not that good people don’t bring things to the table, it’s that they bring things to the table they end up taking back for lack of interest from anyone else. And no one is eager to say—or even to suggest—that that’s they way they want it.”
Is there a joy greater than finding a typo in an NYRB Classic? Don’t tell me if there is.
Psychology and Art: two siblings who cannot put their aged parent, Shame, into hospice.
Unfinished thought no. 2—Jonathan Swift wrote best when he wrote like a child; when he felt threatened or when he felt he didn’t get what was owed him. Swift entered the pantheon of the Classics amid a tantrum that spanned his working life and then some. He wrote in fury, guided only by what was in front of his face. Like any eternal child he was not above childish antics. He did not shirk from bitterly cruel ridicule toward targets that barely deserved it. When they did he poured it on like glass-infused tar. Conspiracy theories and partisan hectoring suited him just fine. He loved a practical joke, often a morbid one. His motives were seldom pure; his loyalties could be disreputable. Only under delusion does Swift give comfort to the merits of literary maturity.
Swift was just as childishly indelicate with boundaries. Conservative instincts were filtered through anarchic frameworks. A longing for authority never rose above groveling subservience. An innate feeling of Englishness boomeranged repeatedly back to Ireland. A need for cleanliness in life and clarity in language enabled the most vivid articulations of filth and the most discordant verbal inventions then known. Swift found mastery only in the midst of chaos; his vigorous prose expressing the most discomforting visions. Swift was an author of Great Works whose best works bore no trace of greatness. They neither emitted light nor compelled flourishing; they remain beneath honors among a civilization-prizing people. Even barbarism is too grand an honor; children are not barbarians.
Unsent love letter no. 1—We can build our own cemetery and choose who lies in it. The dead can bury the dead. —xOxO
Stupidity is less a total condition than an accent mark affixing itself to vulnerable parts of even the most guarded psyche. But as with language, an accent mark well-placed can make the psyche curiously unstable.
As American as ‘roid rage; as Australian as missing-presumed-dead.
There's no rule against dressing the abyss in pastels and soft lighting; the abyss can be cozy and festive.
A house will look empty from the edge of its yard. Look closer into the window and you see the sparse, mannered furnishing. Go through the window, past its open-floor plan, and down the crawlspaces where the heirlooms, ghostly portraits, and other too-conspicuous artifacts rest. Surely there’s no correlation between the state of the home and the state of the homeowner.
Goth aristocracy, punk cultism, hardcore rhetoric, grindcore ethics; roaring chainsaws, glitching signals, menacing letters, last-known footage; intensity over irony, horror over fantasy, sublimity over virility, haunting over occupying; black stars and stripes, cops as greasers, mandatory carnival attendance, life on diner hours. Public-access expressionism: the recipe for American renewal.
Some cultural phenomena inspire the cold, analytical curiosity of a coroner with the promise of being able to dissect millions of people at once.
“You want a career that has an impact on humanity? STEM is the way to go. With STEM there is no shortage of opportunities to make a difference in the world. You could colonize Mars; or find a new solar system altogether! You could find a cheaper, cleaner source of energy to free us from the stranglehold of oil. You could master AI before it masters us. You could even find a cure for tragic debilitations like Italian descent. Yes, young lady?”
“Can I do STEM even if my great grandparents are from Liguria?”
“Truly … truly inspiring! I can already see the Google doodle.”
Unsent love letter no. 2—My grasp on reality is as tenuous as the slope of my commitment is steep, frictionless, and bright at the bottom. —xOxO
Writing should be musical as reading should be physical, and each should startle before they soothe. Semicolons should hurt when you read them. If the force of the period cools, amend every declarative sentence with a backslash.
Your local library has boundaries it would like to clarify when you have time.
You read George Saunders?