Monday, February 23, 2009

Dust, I Gather

A man loomed down on, I sat somewhere in the grass and pewter, where it struck: it's supposed to pour, isn't it? I had, a few moments prior, opened yet another prematurely, a picaresque epic of character and detail (blurb), and the mammoth feat of its creation indicated to me a degree, at least, of pouring, the fingers straggling behind the furiously forming mind, the author the vessel for some divine though necessarily agnostic message. Not quite Alone in the Café, but drawing the perfect line between one's mind and one's surroundings so as to drink in just enough of the latter to fuel the former. That is, the point before revelation becomes distraction.

Many a would-be would be shot through with renewed vigour were they to peek at a first draft of anything in the canon, says theory. But would not they also realise, in one terrible moment, that inspiration can never circumvent Hard Work? There the fun rushes from their face and the doubts creep solemnly in: a flash that proves fruitless is still only a flash; months, years, that's where you want to be damn sure going in. It's supposed to bloody pour— I canvased this to erstwhile author Ben and was treated to a little of his insides.
"Listen, man, you can't be thinking about that kind of thoughts. You just got to write. It's fact. People who think don't write."
"Yeah, that's good, man, I get ya, but that's like theory — not really. It's theoretics. You can say write, and you said it, and thank you, but what does it actually mean in practice?"
"No no, it's got to be real straight-off. You've got to be thinking 'This is it' all the time, you dig? Not thinking thinking, just 'This is it'."
"I see, I see. But I don't quite get what you're getting at."
"Write, plain and simple."
"Write plain and simple?"
"Yes! Put it on paper, punch it. Get it down. You got me?"
"I got you. I just don't know what you mean."
This went on for some time before we both finally agreed that the best thing to do was do.

Let's say a wave of energy whose momentum needs not the p-promise of pay or prestige to proceed. Returning, as if from a dream, the feeling-guilty translateur denies authorship and claims to be little more than a go-between; the craftsman who has fought for every word wants credit for every word, too. Is there something better betwixt the two? The K-to-the-A-to-the-Other-Five-Letters, though busy at an autoclave, did find an answer: "Maybe." And so I stayed, the truth in my heart and the weather on my face.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

What Happened Today

As a show of solidarity, I shall break, one time, from tradition, and speak to you from outside the bubble, desnudo. No jokes, no japes — no bloody sleeves. Tonight exclusive the gorge that divides us is bridged by hope and balsa, and we meet me in the middle. Good will, passed from his mouth to my fingers, shall prop us. Cynicism, that useless thing, will writhe unattended in the meanwhile, failing to be heard over cheers and smiles. Hm? Well, I didn't say anything about it being any clearer — part memory, and Harry will forgive the paraphrasing, but it's all in aid of the message. So let it ring.

It was one day at 5.30. The tide wandered and the sky put on a show. I sat accompanied. Tomorrow, such things will fade in the light of new hassles. So it's to be. One wonders how a girl's gonna sing all her songs when the world's gone wild, and then one wonders why one wonders that. But it's more or less plain: today's a something that won't likely repeat. It's a new world new again, and for the moment we'll care not if it goes backwards after this. Profound thoughts, about as profound as anybody's, sail neatly here, and seem for a moment the epiphany that precedes new happiness.

Sensibly footed, our heroine strolls through the celebration, sense and poise present as ever. Most have the wrong idea about what's being celebrated (please, that was months ago), but not she, the so-called, still-hot smoking gun nesting in her evidence drawer. She turns; the butterflies on itchy fabric, not pajama-like, are feared throughout the criminal world, and a car screams away. Later, in a dorm room, this:
"How do you put someone on a wolverine?" wondered Harry, when the record finished.
"It's probably Smart-Arse for something," I said.
His chin disappeared for a moment into the fat of his neck and I took it to be a nod.
"But that Datura idiot is a complete songwriting genius," he added elliptically. "Now I sleep."
And he began to. Seizing the moment, I wrote "1 Fat Australian — I fuck anything" on his bare back then retired alongside. His warmth was pleasing, in a bean-bag kind of way. But I wished to hell he was someone else.