When I first thought about blogging or heard about it, I thought, "Oh, it’s kind of like writing a column.” But the truth is that a blog is way more ephemeral than even a daily newspaper column. It’s sort of like a soap bubble. […] You should write them quickly. You should get them out there. And understand that the purpose of them is not for them to live for very long but to be sort of “pricked” by other people. […] A blog is kind of the beginning of a conversation.
24 May 2007
pricking soap bubbles
Writer Nora Ephron was interviewed yesterday on our local public radio station. She made some remarks about blogging:
24 April 2007
in Vidal veritas
Okay, I finished Palimpsest.
About halfway through the book my interest waned. Either because Vidal shifted topics -- from sparkling tales of family and literary giants to plodding tales of television and politics -- or because I simply couldn’t sustain the same level of enthusiasm I had for the book during the first week. Or, because I sabotaged my own enthusiasm by seeking the opinions of others. I sniffed around the internet for existing commentary on the book and found John Simon’s bilious, illuminating critique. I turned against Vidal somewhat when I realized that he’s just as capable of fibbing as all the people he accuses of doing so. But I managed to sustain my doubts well enough to enjoy his skewering of just about everybody you’ve ever heard of up to the year 1964. I’ll look forward to more of this kind of fun in Point to Point Navigation, the second volume of Vidal’s memoirs.
Vidal on fibbing: to paraphrase, Vidal says that truth should not be sought in memoirs, perhaps even his own. Novels are the only place you can find truth. I suppose that means a writer’s mind tells the truth only through his or her own reflections, not through reporting “the facts.” This worries me because, as I’ve said, I don’t particularly care for novels (Vidal scorns readers like me). Reading fiction always makes me itch to do something else. Does this mean that my preference for non-fiction will forever keep truth fenced away from me? (Irony of ironies.) If so, I must learn to enjoy novels, but I don’t know how. I read Vidal’s Burr and thought it was okay but not terribly involving. I started Lincoln which everyone raves about, but I couldn’t get past the first couple of chapters. Tooting his own horn, Vidal claims that two of his early novels, The Judgment of Paris and Julian, represent major breakthroughs in his writing, which tempts me to read them.
Maybe I’ll try them after I give up on Wayne Hoffman’s Hard. Already this novel has set my eyes rolling a mere 13 pages in. The noise of Palimpsest’s crinkly cellophane library cover may have drawn stares in public, but the sight of Hard’s tawdry cover, showing a man’s bare torso caressed by his own left hand, makes me twice as self-conscious.
About halfway through the book my interest waned. Either because Vidal shifted topics -- from sparkling tales of family and literary giants to plodding tales of television and politics -- or because I simply couldn’t sustain the same level of enthusiasm I had for the book during the first week. Or, because I sabotaged my own enthusiasm by seeking the opinions of others. I sniffed around the internet for existing commentary on the book and found John Simon’s bilious, illuminating critique. I turned against Vidal somewhat when I realized that he’s just as capable of fibbing as all the people he accuses of doing so. But I managed to sustain my doubts well enough to enjoy his skewering of just about everybody you’ve ever heard of up to the year 1964. I’ll look forward to more of this kind of fun in Point to Point Navigation, the second volume of Vidal’s memoirs.
Vidal on fibbing: to paraphrase, Vidal says that truth should not be sought in memoirs, perhaps even his own. Novels are the only place you can find truth. I suppose that means a writer’s mind tells the truth only through his or her own reflections, not through reporting “the facts.” This worries me because, as I’ve said, I don’t particularly care for novels (Vidal scorns readers like me). Reading fiction always makes me itch to do something else. Does this mean that my preference for non-fiction will forever keep truth fenced away from me? (Irony of ironies.) If so, I must learn to enjoy novels, but I don’t know how. I read Vidal’s Burr and thought it was okay but not terribly involving. I started Lincoln which everyone raves about, but I couldn’t get past the first couple of chapters. Tooting his own horn, Vidal claims that two of his early novels, The Judgment of Paris and Julian, represent major breakthroughs in his writing, which tempts me to read them.
Maybe I’ll try them after I give up on Wayne Hoffman’s Hard. Already this novel has set my eyes rolling a mere 13 pages in. The noise of Palimpsest’s crinkly cellophane library cover may have drawn stares in public, but the sight of Hard’s tawdry cover, showing a man’s bare torso caressed by his own left hand, makes me twice as self-conscious.
16 April 2007
useless adulation
Gore Vidal’s Palimpsest – A Memoir is 435 pages hardbound, covered in very noisy plastic (a library copy, as usual) and I hate carrying it around. It even makes noise if I’m sitting perfectly still. But I haven’t had such fun reading a book in ages. I can’t tell you how many other books I’ve let cascade to the side unfinished lately, so it’s a great surprise to me that I can enjoy a book this much. I always enjoy what Vidal writes, his non-fiction anyway. (It’s slowly dawning on me that I JUST CANNOT read novels.) But yes, I find myself avoiding other activities to sneak another chapter in. This never happens to me. Mr. Supersweetie and I watched Johnny Guitar on VHS last night as we ate Thai delivery, and it was a good movie, but I couldn’t wait to get back to Palimpsest.
I figured I’d blog about it, so that you’d know why I haven't been blogging otherwise lately.
I figured I’d blog about it, so that you’d know why I haven't been blogging otherwise lately.
05 April 2007
Old boy network
Google-searching one’s friends and acquaintances is like spying. Yet I suppose we all do it. Occasionally I feel moved to find out “what ever happened to” such-and-such a person I haven’t seen in a long time.
Lately I feel a curiosity about the boys with whom I attended Lower School at an old Episcopal private school here in New York City. In my time, the Lower School was not yet co-ed, so my classmates were all boys. This turned out to be a terrible thing, despite what you may be thinking. I was never comfortable around all those boys, with their sports and their rowdy ways. I was short and homo, and struggled to pass as merely “arty and effete.” Our mutual disapproval was tense and suffocating. The only time I ever had their respect was when I participated creditably in a music event performed for the whole Lower School. My skill was so obvious and at home on the public stage that it simply couldn’t be ignored. But other than that single time I was looked upon as irrelevant, out of place, mediocre, and generally ridiculous. I believe that my discomfort with this boys’ society translated into discomfort with academic settings in general. As a result I always conflate schoolwork with futility, and perform poorly as a student.
My curiosity about the boys’ current whereabouts is a mystery to me, since I have almost no happy memories of my eight years spent at this Lower School. Yet I still wonder about those boys. I wonder what happened to them. Could they be interesting, nice people now? Or are they still horrible?
Today the name of one of the old boys popped into my head, and I “googled” him. Surprise, surprise: the adult who seems to be the boy I knew in Lower School has become a priest. In fact he’s a chaplain at, of all things, an old Episcopal boys’ school! (One in another city.) This really surprises me. I don’t remember Old Boy ever exhibiting an interest in religion. And yet there he is, an Episcopal priest. The kind of person I respect, broadly speaking.
And yet, looking over the website of Old Boy’s current school, I recognize all the characteristics that made me miserable as a child. I wonder if Old Boy feels at home among the kind of foul boys he was friends with in Lower School. (He and I weren’t friends.) I worry that the little gay boys at that school live at the mercy of jock bullies. Hopefully, the atmosphere there is looser and more collegial than it was for me at Lower School. And that all those boys can enjoy un-stifled childhoods, leading to greater things.
Lately I feel a curiosity about the boys with whom I attended Lower School at an old Episcopal private school here in New York City. In my time, the Lower School was not yet co-ed, so my classmates were all boys. This turned out to be a terrible thing, despite what you may be thinking. I was never comfortable around all those boys, with their sports and their rowdy ways. I was short and homo, and struggled to pass as merely “arty and effete.” Our mutual disapproval was tense and suffocating. The only time I ever had their respect was when I participated creditably in a music event performed for the whole Lower School. My skill was so obvious and at home on the public stage that it simply couldn’t be ignored. But other than that single time I was looked upon as irrelevant, out of place, mediocre, and generally ridiculous. I believe that my discomfort with this boys’ society translated into discomfort with academic settings in general. As a result I always conflate schoolwork with futility, and perform poorly as a student.
Se studiavo di più, che avrei potuto essere? Ci pensate?
My curiosity about the boys’ current whereabouts is a mystery to me, since I have almost no happy memories of my eight years spent at this Lower School. Yet I still wonder about those boys. I wonder what happened to them. Could they be interesting, nice people now? Or are they still horrible?
Today the name of one of the old boys popped into my head, and I “googled” him. Surprise, surprise: the adult who seems to be the boy I knew in Lower School has become a priest. In fact he’s a chaplain at, of all things, an old Episcopal boys’ school! (One in another city.) This really surprises me. I don’t remember Old Boy ever exhibiting an interest in religion. And yet there he is, an Episcopal priest. The kind of person I respect, broadly speaking.
And yet, looking over the website of Old Boy’s current school, I recognize all the characteristics that made me miserable as a child. I wonder if Old Boy feels at home among the kind of foul boys he was friends with in Lower School. (He and I weren’t friends.) I worry that the little gay boys at that school live at the mercy of jock bullies. Hopefully, the atmosphere there is looser and more collegial than it was for me at Lower School. And that all those boys can enjoy un-stifled childhoods, leading to greater things.
04 April 2007
The bell tolls
I've just had the most destabilizing experience reading someone else's blog.
Zac, whose Fool's Gold Coast blog offers a sort of point-counterpoint of flattery/ridicule with Käseblatt (that is, I flatter him and ridicule myself) posted another periodic tally of his diversions. He refers to Spike Lee's 1986 film She's Gotta Have It as "OLD MOVIE OF THE WEEK."
Now I don't usually think of myself as an old queen. But to me an old movie is one that antedates The Graduate. Something like an MGM Arthur Freed musical, or The Damned Don't Cry. But a Spike Lee movie? She's Gotta Have It, to me, is recent enough to stir clear memories of its first-release screening in theaters.
Perhaps I shouldn't admit such a thing.
Zac, whose Fool's Gold Coast blog offers a sort of point-counterpoint of flattery/ridicule with Käseblatt (that is, I flatter him and ridicule myself) posted another periodic tally of his diversions. He refers to Spike Lee's 1986 film She's Gotta Have It as "OLD MOVIE OF THE WEEK."
Now I don't usually think of myself as an old queen. But to me an old movie is one that antedates The Graduate. Something like an MGM Arthur Freed musical, or The Damned Don't Cry. But a Spike Lee movie? She's Gotta Have It, to me, is recent enough to stir clear memories of its first-release screening in theaters.
Perhaps I shouldn't admit such a thing.
27 March 2007
What fresh hell is this?
A new firewall has gone up in the computer network here at the Death Star (my temp job). Now joining a number of other websites barred from on-premises viewing is YouTube. Attempts to access the site are halted by an onscreen message saying that YouTube is “unavailable as a non-business related site” and, somewhat improbably, “categorized as: Sex.” Innocent web pages with inserted links to YouTube video-clips now display forlorn empty space where the videos used to play.
I started to notice these unexpected empty spaces a week or two ago, but thought that our data transmission was temporarily ailing. The possibility that unseen forces were placing further limits on my computer access was a horror I didn’t dare to contemplate.
I can’t say I’m surprised. Just demoralized.
I started to notice these unexpected empty spaces a week or two ago, but thought that our data transmission was temporarily ailing. The possibility that unseen forces were placing further limits on my computer access was a horror I didn’t dare to contemplate.
I can’t say I’m surprised. Just demoralized.
20 March 2007
Outlet
So, I’m doing The Artist’s Way. It was urged upon me by someone who knows what’s good for me.
The book is a 12-week course of exercises to “access creativity and realize dreams.” (Laugh if you will. Some of us need this.) The most important part of the enterprise seems to be the daily, non-negotiable task of free-writing three uninterrupted pages first thing in the morning. No editing, no subsequent review. I write, I put the three sheets of paper in an envelope and close them inside a drawer. Done.
It’s good medicine, both for me and for you. For me because I get a certain amount of mental blather out of my system first thing in the morning. For you because that mental blather is less likely to seep into this blog.
So let's all breathe a sigh of relief.
The book is a 12-week course of exercises to “access creativity and realize dreams.” (Laugh if you will. Some of us need this.) The most important part of the enterprise seems to be the daily, non-negotiable task of free-writing three uninterrupted pages first thing in the morning. No editing, no subsequent review. I write, I put the three sheets of paper in an envelope and close them inside a drawer. Done.
It’s good medicine, both for me and for you. For me because I get a certain amount of mental blather out of my system first thing in the morning. For you because that mental blather is less likely to seep into this blog.
So let's all breathe a sigh of relief.
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