Latest on the "things you can only do at university" list: I have decided to become a poet. The statement makes me laugh so hard. But yeah, decided. Life sorted.
Bit of an explanation: Handed in an essay on Friday (history--about Thoreau [also, I've been reading Kerouac, these explain a lot]) and got one back (biology, 20 of 20, with "well beyond the undergraduate level" and "I would be pleased to have written this" comments--fuck yes.). Did Julius Caesar, which I started memorizing lines for on Monday and performed in front of an audience on Saturday (finished last night). Ended a relationship. Started reading The Savage Detectives, about a 17 year old in Mexico who faffs about with women and poets (the 'visceral realists') and generally leads the (false, bullshit, romantic, wonderful) life literary. Had a bit of a think.
How do you 'become' something? You make a decision. A plumber, for example. "I think I'll be a plumber"--then you go to plumber school, then you get hired, then you are a plumber. Other things are easier--to be a poet, you just have to write poetry. But I've always written poetry. So, really, its a decision to be a pretentious asshole and not care. Or, rather, an interest in taking a mask off the wall, putting it on, and seeing what people say. So, in the space of 5 minutes, I decided to be a poet. This next weekend I am (getting paid!?!) to recite poetry to people at the Byre Theatre for four hours, walking around during this poetry festival and offering to do dramatic renditions of one of 3-4 memorized poems to people. Because why not? I've borrowed Paradise Lost and a book of TS Eliot from friends, and am making people tell me about their favourite poets and recite poetry for me--and it's St Andrews, so people can! And do! And I find it entertaining beyond words, and I laugh and laugh.
In a way, it's a joke, and I imagine I'll get tired of it within a week. But, also, not. Because I read something that really clicked about entrepreneurship that applies to the creative process, and that's the value of making promises--making promises to other people, because its much harder to forget than promises to yourself. So, because it's a funny joke, I've been telling people this. But also because, if I tell people, then I WILL DO IT. I knew this applied to plays--once you have a cast, you can't just stop, you HAVE to go through with something until it is finished, whatever that end product is. What I didn't know was how to apply that to the rest of life. So this is an experiment in that. I've started carrying around a notebook and writing poems whenever I have downtime or an idea (similar to the way, when traveling through the Balkans, I had a 'bathroom poems' rule--whenever I used the bathroom, I had to write a poem, however short or long, and I made myself do it). This summer--or possibly just during Spring Break--I'm going to try to get published. Which is what everyone wants, obviously, but this drive is different. I have made it into something better than a joke, I have made it into a game, and it's a fun game. I get to make up the rules, and I get to win. So that's the plan. I'm getting paid to recite poetry of my choosing this Saturday! I'm reading poetry a lot, even though I'm very bad at reading it, because I will get better. I'm reading The Savage Detectives, because it's young and idealistic (so far) and supports and bolsters my fiction. And I'm writing a lot, which I do better than reading.
Also still writing my play, which I have rehearsal for tonight and am looking forward to. Hoping to have it finished before Easter and sort out performance stuff then. I have been doing very little work since Friday, having a bit of a break and going on long walks, drinking bottles of wine with people until six in the morning, and sitting outside pubs at midday speaking to friends as they pass. Living the life Bohemian. I do it like my generation--self aware, self conscious--I am doing it all ironically. But we just use our irony to cover our sincerity. I saw a friend on facebook post that he now has a shirt with a picture of his own face on it, above which is written "The Death of Irony.", itself obviously an ironic statement. So there we are, hipsters irritate me, but there is such a thing as sincere irony. And there is something wonderful about that, sincerely.
"And these are but random shafts from my mind, I know."
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A Californian, a Scot, and a Shanghainese walk into a bar...
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Soft Night
silent graffiti
sprawling words stretched out on cream pink walls
spattered from on high by the seagulls
that freewheeled and caw-cawed through aharsh pink sky
still graffiti
a motionless oasis
in violence, silent. calm,
but eagerly longing for discovery:
notice me!
here! I am out of place
no whitewashed walls
a monument TO MAN’S INGENUITY
no pyramids of the metropolis
only the loving work of boys
somewhere between testament and confession
they who posses nothing
but are the property of adults
spray themselves out on other adult property
this is mine! until the paint
is covered by another layer
dogs piss at a fire hydrant
silent graffiti
crackling ground under Nikes
and from
far off
the whirr of sirens.
3 comments:
Interesting... there is great movie called 1000 Clowns from the 1950s where an adopted kid "tries on" different names to see what he really wants to be called. Looks like you're "trying on" different careers, in an ironic way (?). Our book group read Savage Detectives and only Mom made it to the end. Maybe it speaks to you more than to us old folks (seemed like it spent too much time trying impress readers with how many obscure literary figures the author knew, and how random and aimless life could be).
Brian -
I have read all your posts since you got back to St. Andrews. And I could comment on the "facts" and "ideas" presented in each. But, I 'll let your Dad do that.
What I'm curious about is the temperament and perspective that informs them. They read like you have been drinking thirty million gallons of coffee day and night and cramming your posts/life with as much description and ideas about your activities as is humanly, breathlessly possible.
This is what most college students do.
I'd like to hear about what you "feel" about what you do and what you think. Something a little more fleshed out than "irony" (which is an internally defensive stance we all take in order to avoid our deeper sometimes painful or just strong feelings about an issue).
College students are masters at it - irony. They go through college feeling hyper (jacked up on coffee or whatever) and/or laid back, cool and ironic.
But, rarely are they deeply engaged from the heart out.
Doing lots and lots of things does not mean that you are deeply touched by them. In fact, doing lots and lots of things can be a way of avoiding how you feel about any one thing or person or idea.
What is it that deeply "moves" you in response to the many things, people and ideas that cyclonically whirl around you.
When you talk about how you "feel" about your experience, "facts" and lists of activities and ideas are given depth and character and a sense of the importance the writer attaches to them.
The reader then starts to know what the writer cares about and who he is in addition to "what" he does with his time.
In one post, you had a very brief sentence, "Ended a relationship" Writers or even more, poets who write about such things could turn that sentence into a book or at least a paragraph about what happened and how they felt about it.
IF you want to be a poet, you are going to have to do a lot better than, "Ended a relationship." It sounds like your crossing something off a list. Did dishes - ended a relationship - went shopping.....:-)
You write very well from the neck up. Now you need to write with your whole body. Work on that heart chakra, kid.
Open it and let it flow.
Addendum -
The very best writers and poets dig deep and write from the razor's edge of their vulnerabilities - their insecurities - their uncertainties.
Admittedly, this is hard to do. In this culture, men - especially young men - do not have permission to self-disclose or make themselves vulnerable. People might laugh at you - call you unmanly or even worse - "girly". But, this is not necessarily a bad thing. You find out very quickly those who are and are not your friends. And that's always good to know.
Such knuckle draggers are as numerous as they are boring. But because they are so emotionally shut down, they eventually end up on meth or in jail and dead or worse - in politics.
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