loudgirl

kafkaesque

"Kafka epitomizes one aspect of this modern mind-set: a sensation of anxiety and shame whose center cannot be located and therefore cannot be placated; a sense of an infinite difficulty within things, impeding every step; a sensitivity acute beyond usefulness, as if the nervous system, flayed of its old hide of social usage and religious belief, must record every touch as pain. In Kafka's peculiar and highly original case this dreadful quality is mixed with immense tenderness, oddly good humor, and a certain severe and reassuring formality. The combination makes him an artist..."

John Updike's Forward to Franz Kafka, The Complete Stories

We don't need to be freed of our anxiety and shame.

We don't need our times to be perfected.

Odd combinations yield artistry.

letters

I wrote letters last night, handwritten, for the first time in a long time. It felt -- fluent. I felt taken back to a more innocent time, a more whimsical, carefree self. I forgot that we write by writing, not by thinking about writing.

I've been troubled by a false need to make decisions about what I want to write, how I want to write (creatively).

When I sit down to write, out it flows and I'm taken to a different place.

Qualities of letters that gently assist

Ephemeral
Intimate
Rhythmical nature of handwriting, especially because there's no stopping to edit

poetics

S wrote that she rarely talks about her poetics on-list. This remark stuck with me. One, that she would rarely talk about it, and two, that she HAD a poetics. Do I have a poetics? I like the term better than a "philosophy" or a "mission statement." I want to have a poetics. I have a fuzzy, unformal poetics. It will take some work to develop it.

Carol Bly has really intense opinions. I've read her books and come away reeling with the force of her tough-minded approach. In one of her essays, she wrote about coming up with our own theory of everything. I believe in that. I'm doing it. But I'd like to be more explicit. More aware. More conscious.

I'm also thinking about self-discipline lately. Thinking about it, not having it. Or rather, having it in some areas, but wanting it in others. If I had a poetics, I might find it easier or more necessary to commit myself to it in a more disciplined way.

On the other hand, can this ever happen by force of will? (a piece of my poetics says No)

nonlinearity in literature

Some thoughts on Nonlinearity in Literature

I eagerly clicked on this link. The words excited me. I felt disappointed when I read there about techniques such as flashback, reversal of time, branching paths, shuffling the deck... I don't know what I expected. Same with Hypertext. While I love the idea of Hypertext, dealing with it, and seeing how it's done overwhelms me with tedium and futility.

so so so so what am I trying to say
it is so damn hard to think I don't know how anyone ever accomplishes it

I'm excited by the idea that there are Other Things that can be written and Other Ways of writing that we don't even know about yet. It's exciting to read about the origins of the novel, for example. It's mind-expanding to think about pre-novel life, post-novel life, and what comes after the novel. Has everything been discovered?

zone

A bit of collage "Zone," magnified. I discovered a technique I enjoy - making an image and then exploring it for details I like with the magnification tool.

the art of bitter tastes

Greenwich Village, after the war. Anatole Broyard ran a second-hand bookstore. I'm enjoying his memoir, Kafka Was the Rage. It's more about sex than books*, but I'll quote a bit about the books.

"But above all, at any cost, I must get Kafka. Kafka was as popular in the Village at that time as Dickens had been in Victorian London. But his books were very difficult to find--they must have been printed in very small editions--and people would rush in wild-eyed, almost foaming at the mouth, willing to pay anything for Kafka.

Literary criticism was enjoying a vogue. As Randall Jarrell said, some people consulted their favorite critic about the conduct of their lives as they had once consulted their clergymen. The war had left a bitter taste, and literary criticism is the art of bitter tastes." (p 31)

*Actually the sex parts are more about soul than sex. Broyard has an utterly lovely, patiently delirious way of describing the odd relationship he had with Sheri Donatti. He's also really good at suspense. At times I can hardly wait to find out what's going to happen next. I can hardly wait to finish the book.

I also find it really charming that he felt like such an unsophisticated youngster in New York, even with a name like Anatole Broyard.

a black stone

From Black Stone 42 by Dale Smith (Skanky Possum):

"The dishes are clean though, and I steal these moments to write, free of the day's mundane gravity, its irritating beauty and sweetness, and hard ugly edges. To be in Art without that tugging need to perform or create something suitable to others. I'm free of it—in prose's rate and measure. The dead god can't reach me here from his cold, spirit-dead world. Language moves by image, an instantaneous transmission of these perceptions. The small nothing moments pass through us here forming inner lives. They are beyond us. Not personal, but stand out in that wild unconscious surge to become translated new. To tend these passages of quiet pleasure or routine after-dinner digesting. And under it you-know-what holds firm—obsidian, inert coil."

I like:
The household aspect.
The acknowledgement of the relaxation of prose.
The talk of language moving by image.
The mysterious black stone image.
The multitudinous small paragraphs.

It's quite a work of art.

too long

what does it matter that it's long,

really long, maybe too long,

who knows how long is long

it has it's own internal swing

I can't modify it

and I don't want to share it

but here's how it ends

"The long amen."