A Segue of Laziness
I really shouldn't miss blog days. Not only do I feel guilty about not writing, but I see the numbers on the blog-o-meter and notice that a whole bunch of you have been subjected to the same useless tripe. I wouldn't want to load my page and see the same damn words that I left the day before staring out at me. To be fair, I was a bit busy, and I did have problems getting the computer back from Kapo. Actually, that's not entirely true. I wrote about a page and a half (1,300 words) of an idea that was mulling in my head, but I haven't had a chance to finish it, nor have I a chance to reference all the allusions and facts that I quoted. There are quite a bit of comments that need referencing, so it (the planned blog), won't come up until some time tomorrow afternoon. That's probably a good thing. Who would want to read two, well thought-out, well documented missives from me back-to-back?
No worries. I'm not getting all serious and technical on you, just yet. If I did, I wouldn't be any different from any other news/blog/rant site out there on the internet. I'm not sure if I am that different from any news/blog/rant site out there, but I do try to leave a touch of myself in my writing; something that is uniquely Jon. No other blog has the touch of Jon, so this site remains mine, and yours as well.
Pablo Neruda, who happens to be one of my favorite poets, once penned in a poem the following line: "I write with your life and my own." That has since become one of my favorite lines in poetry. I'm thinking of having that tattooed somewhere on my body, possibly on my left wrist. I'm not quite sure what the design would look like. The tatto on my right wrist is quite compatable with the tattoo on my right bicep. The lines weave and point in a similar manner. The tatto on my left shoulder is not about lines, but about gradients. Were I to have a gradient on my left wrist, it would look more like a sleeve than an actual tattoo. I don't think that would be a problem, but the symmetry of my arms would be kind of creepy looking.
That, however, is besides the point. The essence of that favored lines lie in the demarcation between reader and writer. People tend to approach text as if they were approaching an opponent, or something mystifying that needs ciphering. Words are to be wrangled with, not caressed. Meaning must be torn from the semantical inferences leeching from each sentence, rather than coaxed. Volumes of text are seen as obstacles to overcome, rather than visions of potential enjoyment. How many of us have flipped through a book and sighed at the number of pages left to read? It's almost as if we were driving through lush country, filled with unparallel beauty, and wondering when our next exit comes.
This kind of approach to literature creates walls between the reader and the writer. Do good fences really make good neighbors? The wall denies us the capacity to completely envelop ourselves in the beauty of the written word. Technical writers and business writers aside, most writers put pieces of themselves in what they write. This can be said for any art form. Art contains the artists soul. A particularly moving dance routine is such because the dancer becomes the dance. An actor strutting and fretting his part on stage is his character because he has merged his being with that of his lines.
These art forms may be exemplar examples of the human properties of aesthetics, but none, I truly believe, match up to the boundless qualities of writing. Theatre, dance, photography, and various modes of art all deal with very much concrete elements. Dance is the human body in motion. Art is using physical objects to represent rather abstract notions, or concrete notions. Photography is simply showing the world what a particular frame of time looked like at a particular instant. Writing, on the other hand, deals with arbitrary language and arbitrary structures for conveying non-concrete forms and ideas. Writing, baby, is an attempt to make language concrete.
What is writing? It appears to be lines on a page. What do these lines represent? Tarzan thought they were little bugs. Obviously, they are not little bugs, but they could be little bugs to someone who stumbled upon strange, small characters on a parchment. Because there is no way to really classify what the small lines that create letters actually mean, we can safely define them as meaningless and arbitrary. An A consists of three lines: two diagonal and one across. By itself, it is void, but by using our experiences and knowledge, we can pronounce it A. This is the essence of hermeneutics, and the foundation of deconstructionist thought. Having attached our experiences to A, we are able to deduce that it is, in fact, A. We then can attach it to other letters, and through our experiences, mark them as their individual characters. A P P L E, standing alone means nothing, but APPLE is a juicy fruit which, when eaten every day, keeps the DOCTOR away.
In order to get the idea of a juicy fruit in our head, we must first conglomerate each individual letters, acquire their meaning, and finally, compile the ultimate meaning from the whole. It seems like a lot of work, but we do this as a natural process. Remember, though, how hard it was when you first started reading.
I believe the most beautiful poems are those that are short, and poignant. One of my favorite poems is one by William Carlos Williams, entitled "This is Just to say." It reads:
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
Wasn't that pretty? The poem seems short and mediocre, but the real love comes from the individual meanings of the words in the poem and the experiences we apply to them. The best way to explain this is to look closely at the last paragraph. How were the plums? Well, the plums were delicious, sweet, and so cold. The textural imagery is quite prominent. Have you ever eaten a plum? Doesn't the last paragraph force you to imagine eating a plum? Weren't they delicious, sweet, and cold? If you think about delicious, sweet, and cold, what other images come to mind? I happen to be thinking about white nectarines, fresh from the counter, and the cold bite of an autumn wind that swings and enhances the visceral joy of everything. Perhaps I think a bit too much, but the imagery remains constant and overpowering.
By forcing me to imagine the plum, Williams is, in fact, using a bit of my life to transmography is poem. He is, in a sense, writing with his life, and my own. That is the essence of Neruda's statement.
I have that line, "I write with your life and my own," hanging above my desk. I wrote it, in my best calligraphy (not quite so good) on a piece of cloth, and framed it. It's a constant reminder that anything I write will have emotional implications beyond what I intended. It's a reminder that anything I write will be embellished and enhanced by the lives, the memories, the experiences, and the emotions of my readers.
In a sense, I'm not actually writing. I'm just putting arbitrary notions on the computer. It's you who's actually writing. So, tell me, have you written well?
No worries. I'm not getting all serious and technical on you, just yet. If I did, I wouldn't be any different from any other news/blog/rant site out there on the internet. I'm not sure if I am that different from any news/blog/rant site out there, but I do try to leave a touch of myself in my writing; something that is uniquely Jon. No other blog has the touch of Jon, so this site remains mine, and yours as well.
Pablo Neruda, who happens to be one of my favorite poets, once penned in a poem the following line: "I write with your life and my own." That has since become one of my favorite lines in poetry. I'm thinking of having that tattooed somewhere on my body, possibly on my left wrist. I'm not quite sure what the design would look like. The tatto on my right wrist is quite compatable with the tattoo on my right bicep. The lines weave and point in a similar manner. The tatto on my left shoulder is not about lines, but about gradients. Were I to have a gradient on my left wrist, it would look more like a sleeve than an actual tattoo. I don't think that would be a problem, but the symmetry of my arms would be kind of creepy looking.
That, however, is besides the point. The essence of that favored lines lie in the demarcation between reader and writer. People tend to approach text as if they were approaching an opponent, or something mystifying that needs ciphering. Words are to be wrangled with, not caressed. Meaning must be torn from the semantical inferences leeching from each sentence, rather than coaxed. Volumes of text are seen as obstacles to overcome, rather than visions of potential enjoyment. How many of us have flipped through a book and sighed at the number of pages left to read? It's almost as if we were driving through lush country, filled with unparallel beauty, and wondering when our next exit comes.
This kind of approach to literature creates walls between the reader and the writer. Do good fences really make good neighbors? The wall denies us the capacity to completely envelop ourselves in the beauty of the written word. Technical writers and business writers aside, most writers put pieces of themselves in what they write. This can be said for any art form. Art contains the artists soul. A particularly moving dance routine is such because the dancer becomes the dance. An actor strutting and fretting his part on stage is his character because he has merged his being with that of his lines.
These art forms may be exemplar examples of the human properties of aesthetics, but none, I truly believe, match up to the boundless qualities of writing. Theatre, dance, photography, and various modes of art all deal with very much concrete elements. Dance is the human body in motion. Art is using physical objects to represent rather abstract notions, or concrete notions. Photography is simply showing the world what a particular frame of time looked like at a particular instant. Writing, on the other hand, deals with arbitrary language and arbitrary structures for conveying non-concrete forms and ideas. Writing, baby, is an attempt to make language concrete.
What is writing? It appears to be lines on a page. What do these lines represent? Tarzan thought they were little bugs. Obviously, they are not little bugs, but they could be little bugs to someone who stumbled upon strange, small characters on a parchment. Because there is no way to really classify what the small lines that create letters actually mean, we can safely define them as meaningless and arbitrary. An A consists of three lines: two diagonal and one across. By itself, it is void, but by using our experiences and knowledge, we can pronounce it A. This is the essence of hermeneutics, and the foundation of deconstructionist thought. Having attached our experiences to A, we are able to deduce that it is, in fact, A. We then can attach it to other letters, and through our experiences, mark them as their individual characters. A P P L E, standing alone means nothing, but APPLE is a juicy fruit which, when eaten every day, keeps the DOCTOR away.
In order to get the idea of a juicy fruit in our head, we must first conglomerate each individual letters, acquire their meaning, and finally, compile the ultimate meaning from the whole. It seems like a lot of work, but we do this as a natural process. Remember, though, how hard it was when you first started reading.
I believe the most beautiful poems are those that are short, and poignant. One of my favorite poems is one by William Carlos Williams, entitled "This is Just to say." It reads:
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
Wasn't that pretty? The poem seems short and mediocre, but the real love comes from the individual meanings of the words in the poem and the experiences we apply to them. The best way to explain this is to look closely at the last paragraph. How were the plums? Well, the plums were delicious, sweet, and so cold. The textural imagery is quite prominent. Have you ever eaten a plum? Doesn't the last paragraph force you to imagine eating a plum? Weren't they delicious, sweet, and cold? If you think about delicious, sweet, and cold, what other images come to mind? I happen to be thinking about white nectarines, fresh from the counter, and the cold bite of an autumn wind that swings and enhances the visceral joy of everything. Perhaps I think a bit too much, but the imagery remains constant and overpowering.
By forcing me to imagine the plum, Williams is, in fact, using a bit of my life to transmography is poem. He is, in a sense, writing with his life, and my own. That is the essence of Neruda's statement.
I have that line, "I write with your life and my own," hanging above my desk. I wrote it, in my best calligraphy (not quite so good) on a piece of cloth, and framed it. It's a constant reminder that anything I write will have emotional implications beyond what I intended. It's a reminder that anything I write will be embellished and enhanced by the lives, the memories, the experiences, and the emotions of my readers.
In a sense, I'm not actually writing. I'm just putting arbitrary notions on the computer. It's you who's actually writing. So, tell me, have you written well?
posted by Jon at 1:18 PM
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