Deferment

I was sitting at the Caribou coffee shop in the Rosedale shopping mall, about nine months ago, waiting for an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar, when inspiration struck after reading a post in the Writing and Literary Discussion forum of the local Craigslist message board.  After reading my response to the initial post, and thinking about whether or not I answered the question or just sought to bring attention to myself, it seems redundant to struggle for authenticity and genuine effort when the likelihood of being sold down the river is so great.  Forgive the overtly antiquated and obviously inflammatory reference - if I didn't feel it suited my burden I wouldn't apply it.
So, Monday morning. 

and so this night, it started - < mlmck > 01/18 16:00:39

I wrote a short story, about 17 years ago, over the course of a week. It started with that phrase, "And so this night it started..." I submitted for review to the highest chair of the English Department at the University I was attending, and he informed me of two things:

1. Starting a sentence with "And so..." was pretty pedestrian and hackneyed.
2. If you have the goods, sell them.

I kept the draft I submitted, with his handwritten comments, and went further in asking him what he meant by selling the goods. His assertion was the short story was relevant, in some way, and needed to be sold. Never happened. In response to your question, I think starting a sentence with the word, "Incidentally" is a little pretentious and conceived. You're setting a tone for the rest of the story, essay or novel that indicates a certain malaise / boredom / narcissism / "Being half in love with an easeful death"
I like the idea though, and the concept of introducing a narrative half in thought is true to the nature of inspiration...as if to imply the reader already knows at least as much about the world, oneself, general practicalities, social constraints and cultural differences between peoples, and then introduces a new radical thought with "Incidentally...". I believe it worked for JD Salinger.
Here's my effort, for posterity.
Incidentally, psychiatric wards in hospitals don't allow fresh air into the rooms of the patients. Opening a window, feeling the wind, the breeze, smelling the night air and the passing of time between night and day is not allowed. A shadow on the ceiling, a certain amount of natural light, the constant sounds of doors opening and closing, buzzing of locks, arguing of patients, your roommates sighing lack of sleep become the environment of your stay. The artificiality of your surroundings seems to reinforce the dramatic need for calm, as if your natural inclination to flee and return to the wilds of your youth will only cause further duress - a thunderstorm passes and though every day of your life you've sought an open window with which to be closer to the tremendous wind, rain and sounds, your stay is not a voluntary attempt at seclusion. It is a compulsory effort to alter your experiences, to change the perceptions of what defines your mental health, to encapsulate your behavior and present it as either autonomous or sympathetic.

I think this piece of writing can be readily juxtaposed with a review I wrote on Goodreads, back in 2010 -

The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer by William Irwin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


So, yesterday, while cussing out a library computer, well within earshot of an innocent bystander, sitting at her computer with a dazed, mildly insulted look on her face, I started into a rant worthy of another Francis Ford Coppola movie.  Something to do with JFK, the Bar Mitzvah I never had; it all pertained, of course, to why the library's computer would not print my document.  Which was, of course, user error. 

So, Philosophy...you're kidding right? 

Every philosophy person/student/professor I've ever met exudes calm, quiet, serenity, perfect and unassailable equanimity with their surroundings.  They are aloof, they are unapproachable, they are the persons of interest on any college campus, think-tank or place of intellectual stimulation.  I don't know JACK about philosophy...or String Theory.  But, I've watched the Simpson's ever since I saw Doctor Marvin Monroe try, try, try to manage the classic familial aggression so ingrained in the Simpson family. 

"Apparently, Homer, your family sees you as something of an ogre." 

Since those words, and laughing myself silly at the sight of all five family members hooked up to electric shock therapy, shocking each other while trying to get one another to "...shut the hell up...", I've succumbed to the most classic of all enabling devices, the television.
So, what does this book have to do with me, with ranting, with the Simpsons, with philosophy and tolerance? 
After acknowledging education is the long process of unlearning what you know in order to accept what you don't, there is a gutless feeling...like falling off a cliff, or being publicly shamed.  There is a feeling that everything you've been taught, learned or have been given, is suspect.  Dirty.  Undignified.  Soiled. 
As if what you've been working so hard to construct is just an enterprise for somebody else to take credit for.  Nothing has been more difficult in my life than that realization.  Every time it is brought back to me, I encounter that same, fatalistic thought.  "What's the point?"
To establish the quality of life that allows an individual to learn in the first place, seems like an achievement; to undo it all and start over, seems like an impossible and pointless goal.  Among the people you meet and see every day, new faces or old, there are few to whom struggle is a foreign concept.  If nothing else, The Simpson's can alleviate the feeling that everyone has something to laugh at, but you.  Learning to appreciate that can make all the difference between asking what's the point and why not. 



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Re-post

Another re-posted Blog entry, from December 26th, 2011

Holiday Tradition

Having had the opportunity to chew a few friends ears off on this issue, I thought I'd throw it against the blogger wall and see if it doesn't stick. I have this theory, about a few movies, and its not really a theory, as much as it is a thesis. It involves the idea of eternal return, divine intervention and painfully slow evolution. A could grab a few movies and their plots in order to increase the chance that one of them would allow for a more accurate point, like grabbing a handful of darts and throwing them all at once, hoping one would find the Bullseye, but I've gone over this thing in my head enough times now that it seems easy to choose one example and allow the verbal discourse to flow.
Take, for example, It's a Wonderful Life. My whole argument with the movie arises from George pausing momentarily on the railing of the bridge he decides to jump off of; in the movie, he actually jumps, lands in the water and must be saved by Clarence. The near death experience, and the appearance of his guardian angel create a fictional reality for George to view his life if he had not existed, and as the viewer, one could assume his life is safely secured in the hands of his guardian angel, so a state of eternal return is implied; if George were to be in an accident, or attempt to jump off of another bridge, it is assumed Clarence would be there to again protect and save him from hell, heaven or that place where Christians go to stand in line while Saint Peter decides if they've been good or bad...Limbo, Macarana, Salsa....Purgatory.
George's decision to jump and end his life, before meeting Clarence and before seeing his life as it would have been if he had never been born, is a desperate act and is one based on his life to that point. The role of Clarence is to show him the value he has as an individual to those around him and how his actions have constantly positively affected his acquaintances. Clarence, in reality, is nothing more than the good intentions we carry towards one another, the faith we have that tomorrow will be a better day than today, and is the will's conscious mind preventing the Christian from ascending the railing and flinging his or herself into the icy water.

What follows is a journal entry from four years ago. Enjoy.

8-8-06
Another early morning, I should start giving gold stars. I usually can’t get out of bed until at least ten o’ clock, so I’m happy to report I’m up and partially functional at six o’ clock. Paul would be proud...I got out fishing yesterday morning too, so this must be a trend. The Willow, true to form, didn’t have a lot of surface activity, sort of in direct opposition of the rush and the Kinnie, the Willow hardly ever seems to have fish rising...although I’ve not spent a lot of time on any of the three, (like, all day, camped out, shore lunch, guiding millionaire clients sort of time) to be certain that this is anything more than theory, it just seems to be a trend. The morning was amazing- three otters swam past me, I turned over some rocks and found dragonfly larva, stonefly larva, mayfly and of course caddis larva.
I fished a few runs and had taken apart my rod to start hiking back, but stopped at one last big pool before walking back to my car. The pool was probably a man made invention- A big structure for lurking browns and rainbows. The pool was created by a large tree, functioning as a dam; water spilled over the top and created a deep pool with oxygenated water flowing to the surface- another branch of the river joined the effluence of the pool about fifteen feet beyond it, at about the same area a gravel road, disrupted on each side of the river by, the river, went through the river and had raised the bottom enough to easily stand on and cast from without hardly getting my shins wet, (if I hadn’t had my waders on of course). I’m not sure how much gravel it would take every year to maintain that underwater dirt/gravel road, but it must take some maintenance. Anyway, I hooked two fifteen+ inch browns, big, plump hens that were probably holding eggs, (roe) and were hefty to the touch. The first was a snag hook, but the second was on the nose. I probably could have hooked into a couple more, seeing as to the pool was probably big enough to hold enough fish to supply the city of Hudson’s huck finn population with fresh trout for days, but I left shortly after hooking a smallmouth bass- too much diversity and craziness for me. The best part, the most unbelievable part of the morning, was the otter family. What I thought at first were beavers, or a solitary beaver, was a small group of otters, working their way downstream, tweeting at each other and sort of half swimming, half porpoising along- it’s the sort of thing I shouldn’t talk about out of fear of some crazy trapper folk going after them-
I knew there were/are big fish in the Willow river, I’ve just never hooked into them- I’m glad my presumptions and theories are sometimes correct. Hello.