The Underbrain
Sunday, April 17, 2005
No devil but division (an old song.)
So the problem with the move from more poetic structure to more prosaic is specifically the shift away from the vago sort of beauty to the demands of story. I don't want a story where actions/words are overly emblematized as larger things, when—in fact—their most immediate level of reality is their own.
Is this the distrust of metaphor? More and more as I think about it, the Realist presumptions of literature feel weaker and weaker. I guess people have been striving against Realism for a long time. My own preferences take me in very different directions. But I still feel funny pressures to write—
Well here is the question. What else does structure get to do, besides psychological, realist, narrative fiction? My answer—Calvino's Invisible Cities. I would love other examples of highly structured works that do not follow the presumptions of realism. Hm. How does a book work like a device?
Use only in situations of extreme stimulation, when separation is desired. It is also possible, though inadvisable, to use in times of great isolation, in order to evoke the sensation of a distant, undetectable overstimulation. At such points, it is essential that the wearer slowly transition to the natural quiet of the surrounding, and find patience and acceptance in it. Within existing isolation, one can capture a strand of self-induced isolation.
But it's connection that I want. It's connection that saves.
How often have I said it, known it? I write about/celebrate isolation, but that is the problem. I run from sincerity, I run from connection, but these are forces that heal. Narrative fiction integrates, gives purpose, gives significance. Non-narrative fiction splinters, questions purpose. We have worked through a century now of isolation, of angst, of disintegration. The
thing is destroyed and then pieced back together. In Art Brut, we let the diseased, the insane, the handicapped do the
reconnection. We trust only their sincerity. Everyone else's is dangerous, is a tool of manipulation.
Things in my life that deepen isolation at the same time that they provide the semblance of connection:
Is this the distrust of metaphor? More and more as I think about it, the Realist presumptions of literature feel weaker and weaker. I guess people have been striving against Realism for a long time. My own preferences take me in very different directions. But I still feel funny pressures to write—
Well here is the question. What else does structure get to do, besides psychological, realist, narrative fiction? My answer—Calvino's Invisible Cities. I would love other examples of highly structured works that do not follow the presumptions of realism. Hm. How does a book work like a device?
- The book goes directly onto the head.
- Unfold the flap. Remove. Cut to the shape of ears.
- Remove visors along perforation. Fold down tab. Position as necessary to filter/block vision.
- In extreme situations, pages may be removed, shredded, and wet. Work into paste, Coat the tongue and block the nostrils. Exposed skin should be similarly treated.
Use only in situations of extreme stimulation, when separation is desired. It is also possible, though inadvisable, to use in times of great isolation, in order to evoke the sensation of a distant, undetectable overstimulation. At such points, it is essential that the wearer slowly transition to the natural quiet of the surrounding, and find patience and acceptance in it. Within existing isolation, one can capture a strand of self-induced isolation.
But it's connection that I want. It's connection that saves.
How often have I said it, known it? I write about/celebrate isolation, but that is the problem. I run from sincerity, I run from connection, but these are forces that heal. Narrative fiction integrates, gives purpose, gives significance. Non-narrative fiction splinters, questions purpose. We have worked through a century now of isolation, of angst, of disintegration. The
thing is destroyed and then pieced back together. In Art Brut, we let the diseased, the insane, the handicapped do the
reconnection. We trust only their sincerity. Everyone else's is dangerous, is a tool of manipulation.
Things in my life that deepen isolation at the same time that they provide the semblance of connection:
- Online personals.
- The rows of images in them.
- The one-paragraph snippets they provide.
- The immense number of them.
- The seeming promise of them.
- The flattening effect of them: everyone, desirable or undesirable, can be contained, even constrained, to just a few inches.
- Flattened desire.
- Flattened expectations.
- DISTANCE FROM MY DREAMS.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Ephemera
Rock, rubber, glue, glass, stones. Chitin, bones. All more durable than skin and meat. But isn't it better that way? Maybe I feel like my words and my thoughts need recording in stone and metal and not just in something as ephemeral as a head.
If I cut my head off, it will note store the thoughts. Heads are not modular. The greatest library: shelves and shelves of heads. Maybe a rudimentary body, a thick cylinder of body, no larger than a neck, little more than a base. And the heads, silent, sleeping, until they're needed, then they awaken. It would have some flair.
They couldn't just sit out on the ledge, though. Would you lock them in boxes? Cases. Each in a white plastic case. Too Ikea that way?
Or: abstracted further: pure, mere, neural matter. The disembodied brain. But brains have grown for usage in bodies. Just nerves, webs of nerves? How would they grow? Could you grow a cube of nerve, stack them in a corner, plug them in? Machines will stay machines until they can apprehend pattern, until they can recognize and relate and tie together. Enough growth of the brains of metal. Let's just get to the growth of real brains.
Maybe we're going at it wrong. We strive so hard for durability and permanence and maybe we need to run right into the arms of the ephemeral. Easier that way. Grow slow, die soon. ¶ 12:14 PM 0 Comments
If I cut my head off, it will note store the thoughts. Heads are not modular. The greatest library: shelves and shelves of heads. Maybe a rudimentary body, a thick cylinder of body, no larger than a neck, little more than a base. And the heads, silent, sleeping, until they're needed, then they awaken. It would have some flair.
They couldn't just sit out on the ledge, though. Would you lock them in boxes? Cases. Each in a white plastic case. Too Ikea that way?
Or: abstracted further: pure, mere, neural matter. The disembodied brain. But brains have grown for usage in bodies. Just nerves, webs of nerves? How would they grow? Could you grow a cube of nerve, stack them in a corner, plug them in? Machines will stay machines until they can apprehend pattern, until they can recognize and relate and tie together. Enough growth of the brains of metal. Let's just get to the growth of real brains.
Maybe we're going at it wrong. We strive so hard for durability and permanence and maybe we need to run right into the arms of the ephemeral. Easier that way. Grow slow, die soon. ¶ 12:14 PM 0 Comments
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Septic?
The sores came back on Wednesday, the same day I'd set to meet T. We've never seen each other in person. I've seen many sides of him--from the front, from each side, but only in two dimensions at a time. Scrawny in the best ways, but with a monumental sort of ass.
It would have been one of my first quick, easy, businesslike sorts of encounters with casual sex since ending a two-year relationship. The first time he was supposed to come over, the sores made their first appearance. They were gone within a few days; but when they first opened, they leaked a crystal-clear fluid like superglue or nectar. They looked like pits, like the ear membranes of reptiles, except spread all over my chin and lower lip. I read them immediately as preemptive punishment, as shame channeling through the lymph nodes, as morality rendered as some sort of microorganism.
T called, an hour late: he had a client, he'd been unable to extricate himself. I told him: I'm covered in weeping sores. We agreed on a raincheck.
Two weeks later, on the day I set to meet him, new sores have erupted, more numerous, across my neck. The doctor said they were most likely folliculitis, just bacteria taking advantage of poor shaving habits. I asked if they were in any way sexual: he said no, for sure. STDs don't usually appear on the neck.
Subconsciously, I've marked my own face. I've scarred myself, with bacteria and lymph. The possibility of open exploration, of sex detached from connection, has me in a full-scale microscopic war of morals. And it looks like the little prudes won.
I had lost T.'s number (obstruction 2), so could only message him through the hookup site where we'd met. He got back to me the day after. I was notified of a response, but haven't logged on to check it. In the meantime, I'm on antibiotics, and am washing my neck with this startling red antiseptic wash.
But the question, the real one: what else needs to be scrubbed? ¶ 12:00 PM 0 Comments
It would have been one of my first quick, easy, businesslike sorts of encounters with casual sex since ending a two-year relationship. The first time he was supposed to come over, the sores made their first appearance. They were gone within a few days; but when they first opened, they leaked a crystal-clear fluid like superglue or nectar. They looked like pits, like the ear membranes of reptiles, except spread all over my chin and lower lip. I read them immediately as preemptive punishment, as shame channeling through the lymph nodes, as morality rendered as some sort of microorganism.
T called, an hour late: he had a client, he'd been unable to extricate himself. I told him: I'm covered in weeping sores. We agreed on a raincheck.
Two weeks later, on the day I set to meet him, new sores have erupted, more numerous, across my neck. The doctor said they were most likely folliculitis, just bacteria taking advantage of poor shaving habits. I asked if they were in any way sexual: he said no, for sure. STDs don't usually appear on the neck.
Subconsciously, I've marked my own face. I've scarred myself, with bacteria and lymph. The possibility of open exploration, of sex detached from connection, has me in a full-scale microscopic war of morals. And it looks like the little prudes won.
I had lost T.'s number (obstruction 2), so could only message him through the hookup site where we'd met. He got back to me the day after. I was notified of a response, but haven't logged on to check it. In the meantime, I'm on antibiotics, and am washing my neck with this startling red antiseptic wash.
But the question, the real one: what else needs to be scrubbed? ¶ 12:00 PM 0 Comments
