|
recent thought / activity
See the full list at LibraryThing
audio
|
apocalypse, pain, and writing
From an interview with Nick Harkaway, whose The Gone-Away World is a book I still would like very much to read: "It's not really enough any more to say "this will destroy the world", because that's sort of a given. You have to show what that means, why it matters. You have to show pain. We all know about pain on some level. Apocalypse is a gag. Pain is real. Contemporary issues - albeit dressed up and taken sideways - they make you feel. You have a stake in the action. And without that sense of investiture, action is just noise. " Labels: advice, creative_process, writing
Thursday, February 02, 2012
today's selection from the card file
"Abandoned to the whims of others, we must wander daily through the wish to be loved and the fear of rejection before we can be productive. Categorized 'good' or 'bad' from birth ... we become so enmeshed with the tenuous threads of approval / disapproval that we are creatively paralyzed. ... Having thus to look to others to tell us where we are, who we are, and what is happening results in a serious (almost total) loss of personal experiencing." "Approval / disapproval grows out of authoritarianism that has changed its face over the years from that of the parent to the teacher and ultimately the whole social structure (mate, employer, family, neighbors, etc.). The language and attitudes of authoriarianism must be constantly scourged if the total personality is to emerge as a working unit." -Viola Spolin, Improvisation for the Theatre Labels: advice, authority, experience, identity, mental_illness
Monday, October 13, 2008
advices
Maybe I'm just in a sentimental mood, but here are a few scraps that I've been holding close to my heart this week: Two bits of horoscope text, courtesy of Free Will Astrology's Rob Brezny. First up, from the week of June 7: "Remember a moment, after an argument with an ally, when the first tentative spark of reconciliation flowed between your eyes and his or hers. These are good metaphors for the kinds of experiences you should seek out, cultivate, and concentrate on[.]" OK? And then, from one week earlier: "Here are a few of the fine improvements I expect you to have accomplished by the end of June: tips on how to live well in two worlds; an addition to the reasons why people find you attractive; a crash course that helps you become more fluent in the language of intimacy; richer, more interesting feelings than you've experienced in a long time; and practical insights into how to avoid being flustered by paradoxes that have driven you crazy in the past." By the end of June, eh? Tall order. But sometimes quasiangelic assistance can come from everywhere, even, for instance, from Chris Stangl's brief write-up of Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance Trilogy, which I am 2/3rds of the way through. Stangl writes that the films are less about revenge than they are about "learning that your Right may conflict with someone else's," and "the difficulty of evaluating your motivation and responsibilities in light of knowing everyone is in the same predicament." These are topics I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I'm thankful to Stangl for crystallizing them conceptually. But in terms of advice, I turn my attention to these sentences, Stangl's way of articulating the enduring message of the trilogy's final film: "Revel in your ability to create opportunities for redemption. Be grateful for the instances when you greet a second chance having learned a lesson. Bury your face in them and dig in."
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
today's horoscope
This morning, for the first time in a long time, I did a divination from a random passage from a randomly-chosen book. The book was Dodie Bellamy's Pink Steam, and the passage was this: "William Burroughs was timid and thin as a young boy, he was in his 70s and Mark in his teens and it felt like two boys in bed, I'm going over to his place this afternoon for a tarot reading, he drew two cards on my phone machine, the first card he said meant chaos but it's just temporary because the second card said that, cosmically, things are going really well for me." Well. I hope so.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
| |||||||||||||||||
|