Tuesday, March 22, 2005
I read this Village Voice article from a few years back just a few days ago. Ted Rall really lays into Art Spiegelman with this paragraph :
'When he wrote an obituary of Mad Magazine cartoonist Antonio Prohias for The New York Times Magazine's "The Lives They Lived" issue, the piece contained seven paragraphs, of which merely two referred to Prohias. The bulk of the piece was about Art, his early career and how he didn't particularly admire Prohias's work. The words I, me, and my appear 25 times in a 500-word article. It doesn't matter if he's analyzing Charles Addams, eulogizing a dead Cuban cartoonist, or reviewing an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery— it's always about Art.'
I thought about the above passage when I was re-reading my entry below. I don't think there's a paragraph that I don't start off with 'I'. I'm not sure if that's indicative of shitty writing or self absorbed writing.
I'm off to the Motherland tomorrow.
'When he wrote an obituary of Mad Magazine cartoonist Antonio Prohias for The New York Times Magazine's "The Lives They Lived" issue, the piece contained seven paragraphs, of which merely two referred to Prohias. The bulk of the piece was about Art, his early career and how he didn't particularly admire Prohias's work. The words I, me, and my appear 25 times in a 500-word article. It doesn't matter if he's analyzing Charles Addams, eulogizing a dead Cuban cartoonist, or reviewing an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery— it's always about Art.'
I thought about the above passage when I was re-reading my entry below. I don't think there's a paragraph that I don't start off with 'I'. I'm not sure if that's indicative of shitty writing or self absorbed writing.
I'm off to the Motherland tomorrow.
I can barely write its name. I don't abhor it, loathe or resent it, it's just that writing its name reminds me of all the insincerity I possessed. There's nothing quaint about its name.
My favourite part of it all was riding my bike home after the Greyhound rolled into the Banff bus station and singing bits and pieces of songs all the way home. At that time of night I felt like I owned the streets.
"It feels good to say what I want/It feels good to tear things down"
It was false bravado. A small comfort in a town that for the first year that I had lived there had shown me more than my fair share of loneliness. I roamed the streets a lot trying to make sense of what I was trying to accomplish while in exile. I had no master stroke.
I never really learned to cope with being lonely in that town until I moved in with Mike. I would go to bars and hope against hope that that night would be different. I had hoped that my awkwardness would disipate and reveal my naturally charming self. I'm not sure how I imagined that would happen. I suppose I just assumed that some night I’d go out and Banff would change or I'd change and I'd feel be something special. It was a battle of wills and I never achieved the outcome I wanted. Days would go by and the only conversations I would have were with fellow employees and if I was lucky, the grocery clerk.
I use to wander this town aimlessly at night. I promised myself that I wouldn't go to sleep until something good happened to me that day. It was hard, especially in this mountain town. I hated myself for making that promise. I would hate myself more for breaking it. I wanted so bad to leave that town, but it seemed like every time I tried to leave town I ended up on a bus or in a car headed right back to it. I spent my energy wandering the town like a localized Kwai Chang Caine. My adventures were mediocre to say the least.
I decided I needed to survey my prison in its entirety in order to formulate a decent escape. I'd seen 'The Great Escape', I knew how this shit worked. Each time I found a promising roof it was protected by a very ambitious looking security system. It seemed like a waste of grey matter to devise a plan for routing a security system in order to devise a plan to break out of this town. I moved on.
I settled on a tree at the edge of the high school football field. In its branches I forgot all about trying to escape the town and started formulating plans for my life after the escape. With my cunning it was a foregone conclusion.
I dreamt of all the bands I would start.
I thought of my friends' bands. I thought about the shows they had to turn down because their drummer had to work. I thought about the apologies they had to deliver to other bands because their guitarist was rude and made comments that shouldn't have been overheard, but were. I thought about the fights they had in parking lots before and after shows, the money spent repairing vans that should never be on the road. Hurt feelings, breakdowns, and busted heads (not the anatomical sort). I envied them. I wanted all that fucking bullshit.
I climbed back down to the ground and headed for my bed. All I had were elk.
My favourite part of it all was riding my bike home after the Greyhound rolled into the Banff bus station and singing bits and pieces of songs all the way home. At that time of night I felt like I owned the streets.
"It feels good to say what I want/It feels good to tear things down"
It was false bravado. A small comfort in a town that for the first year that I had lived there had shown me more than my fair share of loneliness. I roamed the streets a lot trying to make sense of what I was trying to accomplish while in exile. I had no master stroke.
I never really learned to cope with being lonely in that town until I moved in with Mike. I would go to bars and hope against hope that that night would be different. I had hoped that my awkwardness would disipate and reveal my naturally charming self. I'm not sure how I imagined that would happen. I suppose I just assumed that some night I’d go out and Banff would change or I'd change and I'd feel be something special. It was a battle of wills and I never achieved the outcome I wanted. Days would go by and the only conversations I would have were with fellow employees and if I was lucky, the grocery clerk.
I use to wander this town aimlessly at night. I promised myself that I wouldn't go to sleep until something good happened to me that day. It was hard, especially in this mountain town. I hated myself for making that promise. I would hate myself more for breaking it. I wanted so bad to leave that town, but it seemed like every time I tried to leave town I ended up on a bus or in a car headed right back to it. I spent my energy wandering the town like a localized Kwai Chang Caine. My adventures were mediocre to say the least.
I decided I needed to survey my prison in its entirety in order to formulate a decent escape. I'd seen 'The Great Escape', I knew how this shit worked. Each time I found a promising roof it was protected by a very ambitious looking security system. It seemed like a waste of grey matter to devise a plan for routing a security system in order to devise a plan to break out of this town. I moved on.
I settled on a tree at the edge of the high school football field. In its branches I forgot all about trying to escape the town and started formulating plans for my life after the escape. With my cunning it was a foregone conclusion.
I dreamt of all the bands I would start.
I thought of my friends' bands. I thought about the shows they had to turn down because their drummer had to work. I thought about the apologies they had to deliver to other bands because their guitarist was rude and made comments that shouldn't have been overheard, but were. I thought about the fights they had in parking lots before and after shows, the money spent repairing vans that should never be on the road. Hurt feelings, breakdowns, and busted heads (not the anatomical sort). I envied them. I wanted all that fucking bullshit.
I climbed back down to the ground and headed for my bed. All I had were elk.
I wrote this while living on Bloomfield St. It really could be about almost any house I've ever lived in aside from the two homes I grew up in. It was part of a larger short story that just seems hokey now. It'll probably never get finished which is fitting.
Sometimes I lie in my bed in my unfinished house and stare at the white ceiling that was once pink. It's been hastily painted and I wonder if I will ever summon the ambition or find the desire within me to finish someone else's job properly. I know I can't be bothered. It requires too much effort, too much work, too much energy. I may some of these things, I may even have all of these things, but I have them in short supply. Well aware of it I know I'll never get around to completing someone else's job.
The lights in my ceiling were never properly installed. That's more than a bit incorrect, that statement would lead one to believe that the lights actually functioned at one point. The lights never functionned because beyond a few connecting wires they were never installed. Some previous occupant must have surveyed what they had done and decided that the completion of the job would require too much of something. Funds? Ambition? Elbow grease? Perhaps the former residents simply didn't care. The wires were installed one day and the next day they didn’t return to the task of light installation. They couldn't be bothered, they didn't care, perhaps they couldn't. I can relate to that
You try to summon the concern and you find yourself wanting.
Sometimes I lie in my bed in my unfinished house and stare at the white ceiling that was once pink. It's been hastily painted and I wonder if I will ever summon the ambition or find the desire within me to finish someone else's job properly. I know I can't be bothered. It requires too much effort, too much work, too much energy. I may some of these things, I may even have all of these things, but I have them in short supply. Well aware of it I know I'll never get around to completing someone else's job.
The lights in my ceiling were never properly installed. That's more than a bit incorrect, that statement would lead one to believe that the lights actually functioned at one point. The lights never functionned because beyond a few connecting wires they were never installed. Some previous occupant must have surveyed what they had done and decided that the completion of the job would require too much of something. Funds? Ambition? Elbow grease? Perhaps the former residents simply didn't care. The wires were installed one day and the next day they didn’t return to the task of light installation. They couldn't be bothered, they didn't care, perhaps they couldn't. I can relate to that
You try to summon the concern and you find yourself wanting.
