things are a lot quieter here now
dear on & no read
only tuck in sacred pass
wrung it out, hammered off in plus-sized selfless approximations
I’d rather not Taibo, failed Montague vessel all raced-back and hungry
restaurant phasing out All Poets Won’t Speaking
Like I Maybe
as you are a notebook
cold whimper lie a still can lie
on but oh i know
still swell a month of this
long before
The alarm goes “shut the FUCK up”, over and over and over, and it’s for you, and for all the other asphyxiatingly narcissistic pieces of shit for which you’re a handy placeholder.
It goes off when you even think about excusing your vacant, juvenile horseshit by saying it was “intended as satire”;
it goes off when you squat in a public forum and let drip from your sneering puckered heart something so fucking stupid and badly executed that you have to TELL people it was “intended as satire”;
it goes off when you insult anyone with less power and less privilege and less energy by deploying all of those things with the delinquent, toxic, atrophied whimsy of a fucking jock, by having “intended satire”;
it goes off when you delude yourself that your work is so fucking intelligent and reflective that it necessarily pre-assimilates any response, critical or laudatory, enraged or adoring;
it goes off when you conjure a smug bukkake of that criticism, and kneel glowing like a sleazy fucking Mickey Mouse, trying to magick those dirty dishes back to whiteness and straightness and maleness in a scattergun colonnade of abuses of privilege: it goes off at that shit-eating grin which says “I staged this”;
it goes off when you piss out this “intended as satire” line as an attempt to make your chunk of embarrassing dogshit into a fucking GIF, to loop and swaddle it forever in a moment which you don’t fucking GET to create, closed off from time and history and care and sealing out everyone brats like you never gave a shit about hurting.
The alarm is free to install and to use. I have friends who write poems or make music. They thrive on a radical kindness, and they make work which is as fucking beautiful and exemplary as they are. When they satirize, it is funny and brilliant and at the expense only of those who deserve it. They never hurt people for their work.
Dog of Wisdom by a literal genius
Sometimes there is a video a video that changes everything. A person might have been simply living their life, chilling and watching Netflix, the usual. One day they see a video that turns everything they know in life upside down.
“Dog of Wisdom” is one of those videos.
With an animation style that can only be described as “flight simulator esque” the video is a compelling document of what humanity can accomplish when it wants to kill a minute of time. This video is the kind of thing that proves exactly how creative a person can be from the brilliant color scheme to the clever animation to the deep enriching plot line.
The video begins with a dog flying in a plane. No explanation is given for this dog flying a plane. None is needed. Simply put, the dog flies. Akin to Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s longtime friend and sometime dealer, this dog flies around seeing the landscape. Unlike Snoopy, the dog has no allusions of grandeur. Rather the dog explains how everyone likes him. Maybe this is true and maybe it is not but that is ultimately irrelevant for this video is about something bigger than the dog something bigger than everything.
Out in the shimmering clear blue sky is another dog. The dog (our titular character) notices this while in the midst of barking at nothing in particular. Upon seeing this other dog the dog (the dog) appears distraught. Without any sort of further development the video shows the anguish and pain this causes the dog. For a while the dog becomes enraged, wondering why there would ever be another dog in the sky.
Introducing himself as the “dog of wisdom” the dog (the dog) asks about what their wisdom could possibly be. The dog of wisdom gives a clever, concise, sort of Aesop-fable kind of wisdom. Even the dog remarks “that is a good wisdom” to which the dog of wisdom replies “thanks”.
Ending the video on a high-ass note the dogs sing together like a choir of angel dogs. In fact, much of the video can be viewed as an allegory for heaven and the afterlife. Wisdom is dispensed from a tooth a tooth that helps the dog of wisdom achieve true enlightenment. This joy is given to all possible travelers, whether they are dog or non-dog (though the latter can only be assumed).
Sometimes there is a video that makes a person believe in the goodness of society and “Dog of Wisdom” is that video.
Wayne Thiebaud (American, b. 1920), Down Penn Street, 1978. Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 in.
Here’s my life. My husband and I get up each morning at 7 o’clock and he showers while I make coffee. By the time he’s dressed I’m already sitting at my desk writing. He kisses me goodbye then leaves for the job where he makes good money, draws excellent benefits and gets many perks, such as travel, catered lunches and full reimbursement for the gym where I attend yoga midday. His career has allowed me to work only sporadically, as a consultant, in a field I enjoy.
All that disclosure is crass, I know. I’m sorry. Because in this world where women will sit around discussing the various topiary shapes of their bikini waxes, the conversation about money (or privilege) is the one we never have. Why? I think it’s the Marie Antoinette syndrome: Those with privilege and luck don’t want the riffraff knowing the details. After all, if “those people” understood the differences in our lives, they might revolt. Or, God forbid, not see us as somehow more special, talented and/or deserving than them.
There’s a special version of this masquerade that we writers put on. Two examples:
I attended a packed reading (I’m talking 300+ people) about a year and a half ago. The author was very well-known, a magnificent nonfictionist who has, deservedly, won several big awards. He also happens to be the heir to a mammoth fortune. Mega-millions. In other words he’s a man who has never had to work one job, much less two. He has several children; I know, because they were at the reading with him, all lined up. I heard someone say they were all traveling with him, plus two nannies, on his worldwide tour.
None of this takes away from his brilliance. Yet, when an audience member — young, wide-eyed, clearly not clued in — rose to ask him how he’d managed to spend 10 years writing his current masterpiece — What had he done to sustain himself and his family during that time? — he told her in a serious tone that it had been tough but he’d written a number of magazine articles to get by. I heard a titter pass through the half of the audience that knew the truth. But the author, impassive, moved on and left this woman thinking he’d supported his Manhattan life for a decade with a handful of pieces in the Nation and Salon.
Example two. A reading in a different city, featuring a 30-ish woman whose debut novel had just appeared on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. I didn’t love the book (a coming-of-age story set among wealthy teenagers) but many people I respect thought it was great, so I defer. The author had herself attended one of the big, East Coast prep schools, while her parents were busy growing their careers on the New York literary scene. These were people — her parents — who traded Christmas cards with William Maxwell and had the Styrons over for dinner. She, the author, was their only beloved child.
After prep school, she’d earned two creative writing degrees (Iowa plus an Ivy). Her first book was being heralded by editors and reviewers all over the country, many of whom had watched her grow up. It was a phenomenon even before it hit bookshelves. She was an immediate star.
When (again) an audience member, clearly an undergrad, rose to ask this glamorous writer to what she attributed her success, the woman paused, then said that she had worked very, very hard and she’d had some good training, but she thought in looking back it was her decision never to have children that had allowed her to become a true artist. If you have kids, she explained to the group of desperate nubile writers, you have to choose between them and your writing. Keep it pure. Don’t let yourself be distracted by a baby’s cry.
I was dumbfounded. I wanted to leap to my feet and shout. “Hello? Alice Munro! Doris Lessing! Joan Didion!” Of course, there are thousands of other extraordinary writers who managed to produce art despite motherhood. But the essential point was that, the quality of her book notwithstanding, this author’s chief advantage had nothing to do with her reproductive decisions. It was about connections. Straight up. She’d had them since birth.
In my opinion, we do an enormous “let them eat cake” disservice to our community when we obfuscate the circumstances that help us write, publish and in some way succeed. I can’t claim the wealth of the first author (not even close); nor do I have the connections of the second. I don’t have their fame either. But I do have a huge advantage over the writer who is living paycheck to paycheck, or lonely and isolated, or dealing with a medical condition, or working a full-time job.
How can I be so sure? Because I used to be poor, overworked and overwhelmed. And I produced zero books during that time. Throughout my 20s, I was married to an addict who tried valiantly (but failed, over and over) to stay straight. We had three children, one with autism, and lived in poverty for a long, wretched time. In my 30s I divorced the man because it was the only way out of constant crisis. For the next 10 years, I worked two jobs and raised my three kids alone, without child support or the involvement of their dad.
I published my first novel at 39, but only after a teaching stint where I met some influential writers and three months living with my parents while I completed the first draft. After turning in that manuscript, I landed a pretty cushy magazine editor’s job. A year later, I met my second husband. For the first time I had a true partner, someone I could rely on who was there in every way for me and our kids. Life got easier. I produced a nonfiction book, a second novel and about 30 essays within a relatively short time.
Today, I am essentially “sponsored” by this very loving man who shows up at the end of the day, asks me how the writing went, pours me a glass of wine, then takes me out to eat. He accompanies me when I travel 500 miles to do a 75-minute reading, manages my finances, and never complains that my dark, heady little books have resulted in low advances and rather modest sales.
I completed my third novel in eight months flat. I started the book while on a lovely vacation. Then I wrote happily and relatively quickly because I had the time and the funding, as well as help from my husband, my agent and a very talented editor friend. Without all those advantages, I might be on page 52. OK, there’s mine. Now show me yours.
"–
Ann Bauer, ““Sponsored” by my husband: Why it’s a problem that writers never talk about where their money comes from”, http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/sponsored_by_my_husband_why_its_a_problem_that_writers_never_talk_about_where_their_money_comes_from/ (via angrygirlcomics)
This is so important, especially for people like me, who are always hearing the radio station that plays “but you’re 26 and you are ~*~gifted~*~ and you can write, WHERE IS YOUR NOVEL” on constant loop.
It’s so important because I see younger people who can write going “oh yes, I can write, therefore I will be an English major, and write my book and live on that yes?? then I don’t have to do other jobs yes??” and you’re like “oh, no, honey, at least try to add another string to your bow, please believe that it will not happen quite like that”
It’s so important not to be overly impressed by Walden because Thoreau’s mother continued to cook him food and wash his laundry while he was doing his self-sufficient wilderness-experiment “sit in a cabin and write” thing.
It’s so important because when you’re impressed by Lord of the Rings, remember that Tolkien had servants, a wife, university scouts and various underlings to do his admin, cook his meals, chase after him, and generally set up his life so that the only thing he had to do was wander around being vague and clever. In fact, the man could barely stand to show up at his own day job.
It’s important when you look at published fiction to remember that it is a non-random sample, and that it’s usually produced by the leisure class, so that most of what you study and consume is essentially wolves in captivity - not wolves in the wild - and does not reflect the experiences of all wolves.
Yeah. Important. Like that.
(via elodieunderglass)
THIS ^^ MAKES THE PHENOMENON OF FAN FICTION ALL THE MORE AMAZING!
(via waitingforgarridebs)
Makes me think of Trump and his ‘small loan of a million dollars…’ People who have always had money have no idea what it’s like to not have it.
(via thescienceofjohnlock)
– Robert Morris, Artforum 1966