Brilliant Idea: Nobody Cares

Are you suggesting that the emotional palette is a learned repertoire? One friend used to mumble that "Subjectivity must be nice!" I don't know if he was suggesting that he had mastered objectivity, or could ill-afford subjectivity. Certainly there are popular emotions and feelings and patterns and sequences of emotions and feelings. It's probably best not to think or feel anything out of the ordinary, deviancy is a threat to the well-being of the corporate state. Liz Phair is Lillith Phair's sister, right?

please die

Jacques, what I'm saying is, while there's plenty of good music, drama, whatever based on reality or in a realist style, there's an overwhelming amount of boring crap and that should be discouraged.

There are plenty of people who learn emotions rather than develop them naturally. That's why self-help books are so hazardous. Rather than encouraging you to figure out why you behaev the way you do through introspection, they tell you you're a certain personality type, and you try to fit your actions and rationalizations for them into those boundaries.

Sure, most of the daily normal emotional range is boring, pedestrian. It may be an unfounded prejudice on my part, but I have learned to avoid people who don't pronounce the "L" when discussing their feelings. Probably best to avoid peole who discuss their feelings altogether, unless they've found some new, uncharted areas.

I hadn't thought of the post relationship sex as a healthy re-assertion of sexuality, usually it's sort of "revenge sex."

or did you just wander right past staniel's point?

pardon me, but I was summoned from Hell by the use of the word "poetry".

I find that many people are under the mistaken notion that great artists had great feelings, and that is what made them great artists. Of course, the horrible truth is that great artists had the same feelings as anyone else, they were just really good at art.

Such people are shocked by the power of their own emotions. They think they're the only ones! What a terrific joke! And so they inflict their art or poetry on the world, honestly believing they are the next Mozart. Or even worse, they discover that other people have emotions, too, and join the everyone-is-an-artist school of thought.

"My poem got an honorable mention at poetry.com! They want me to buy a book with my poem in it! My poem in a book! Along with hundreds of other great poets who aren't afraid to express their feelings!"

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I have to say that staniel is completely correct. It's like anyone who watches "Felicity" or "Dawson's Creek" suddenly has an interesting life. What they absolutely fail to realize is that the characters in these shows weren't actually all that interesting to begin with. "In the next episode, Felicity's dog dies..." that's not interesting....that's life. It happens. It doesn't mean that it's neccessarily note worthy.
I'd like to add something that I hate.
My best freind thinks that she is one day going to wake up and have this terribly thrilling "Mission: Impossible" life style. One day we were talking about American citizenship. She says "I'm glad I have my citizenship, 'cause I know one day I'm gonna be out in some foreign country and I'm gonna be in trouble. And I'm gonna need to go to the embassy."
Right.
First, let's forget that this girl is to freakin' lazy to clean her room or return a phone call. But she's the person afraid to tear the tag off her pillow 'cause it says not too. She thinks that she's going to get in enough trouble to require going to the American Embassy.
Of course I must remember that this is the same girl who swears that she is going to be abducted by aliens some day, and they're going to find her so interesting that they're going to just take them home with her. Ain't the imagination a grand thing?
Okay, I think I got a bit off track here folks. Sorry.

I may not know Art, but I know what I like: decoupage.

Well, at least here there are plenty of embassies if you want to play Mission Impossible. When we were looking for chemical warfare weapons, the Libyans wouldn't let us in. The New Zealand embassy has the best lunch, and you can eat there. The Turk embassy has the nicest old building, and the German embassy is the best new building. I like to wear the chemical suit and go to an embassy and tell them I'm from Dagon and would like to establish diplomatic and trade relations with their political entity.

Along the lines of posthumous' argument, I propose a better canto for schoolkids: "I am not an artist." Having worked in the fields of writing and photography, I am here to testify that altogether too many people were not discouraged from pursuing art as a career, which is what leads to so much crap out there on the market. The drek I've seen is only compounded by the perpetrators' unwavering self-view of themselves as an artiste. It's nauseating and depresssing. If someone would just say, "You don't have what it takes, give it up," we could have been spared the horror of Mark Rothko, Andres Serrano and Tom Robbins. See what the sixties have wrought.

I'd blame it on universal education. Great writing would not likely make the bestseller list, and pulp fiction is not great lit. I don't know what photojournalism is, but just because a studio photographer puts on a beret, it doesn't make photography art. I've always thought of photography as something for people who can't draw. I don't have any strong emotions about this matter. I like Tom Robbins, Jophn Irving, and even Larry McMurtry. And Douglas Unger. One good thing about these books: No gawdam photographs!

Rick Mercer (Canadian comic) went around the embassies in Ottawa asking for liquor and everyone told him to piss off, except the Pakistanis (or someone else muslim/arab) who gave him and his crew juice and cookies.

Ultimately, Jacques, this infestation of the "everyone can be an artist" permeates everything from photography to writing to painting to theater, to the point where we can't see the diamonds anymore because they're buried under a towering pile of horse manure. Or maybe we can't tell the diamonds from the rhinestones because they're all applied together to the back of a denim jacket worn by some hillbilly hooker on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. The point is there is no art anymore. Art is something that happened a long time ago. And a long time from now, people might be able to find the art that happened today. Artists don't get to be artists in their own lifetime. True art is only recognized after time takes it's toll. But in society today, we view art as a means toward an end. Paint something wonderful and you can be the toast of the town. Sing a pretty little ditty and kids will worship you. It's commerce, it's fame, it's fleeting. But what it's not is art.

...How much did poetry.com pay you for the poem?

It was curious to me about this, I was just having a conversation this week about poseurs and wannabe artists, which I suppose is also what is at the root of shallow emoting and limited feeling. My friend who quit architecture is now having some small accomplishment as a painter. She had mentioned someone who is not much of a painter, and I shared some of my encounters with such types. She also teaches martial arts, and suggested that some people don't find the "kung fu" of art or music. I don't know that that is the best expression, but I intuit what she means in as much as it is finding the magic of it, the tricks of the trade.

movie, huh... i myself like to think that my life is a very boring video game and i've only got one man

For some reason I think there are lots of hillbilly hookers in Bakersfield.

And not just finding the inner part of art but learning the actual skill. This whole "not having skill or technique IS my technique" school of thought is dead. Period. And anyone still thinking like this risks my wrath and the wrath of my ilk. Practice people, learn. It's a job like any other and it takes time to learn.

Buck Owens would probably know about the hookers...

I always thought soap operas were the work of the devil (or at any rate the grimmest thing I've ever come across) but I'd assumed (from talking to girlies) that I was alone in this estimation and that it was caused by growing up without a telly. It's good to see I'm not the only person who ranks them only just behind Other Peoples' Driving.

i apologize in advance for this, my second yeats quote of the day, from "among school children". the last line always pops into my head when i think about writing, artistic technique, etc.:

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

They don't write 'em like they used to. I had a two volume first edition of Oliver W. Holmes, Jr. "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," which I lost, dammit. But there was a nice bit about a seashell with each compartment spiraling a bit bigger than the previous.

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

Yeah, well, the jackals are waiting in the bush to spring forth and strip the flesh from all art until only the advertising jingles remain!

Being posthumous, all the monies were sent to my estate, which in turn funds the Foundation for Artists Against Relevant Topics in Society, an organization I started (with little more than a can of beans and a matchstick) to destroy political art. Our greatest achievement was the annual holiday, A Day With Art, but it had to be canceled due to lack of material.

I think that one of the main reasons for the sudden outbreak of "aspiring" artists, pseudointellectuals, and oversentimental teens is the creation of the internet. Sites hosting online journals and web logs allow people to get their voice out into the open, which automatically makes them believe that people care their views. Live Journal, if anything, is a detriment to our society, a mass wave of recycled teen-angst-inspired opinions, and the need to express emotions is catered to, only in an impersonal light; causing more than what should be said, overexposure, leading to a sense of uniqueness and individuality, whilst they're one of many introducing "new, raw thoughts" to an "unwitting" American Public.

If anything, diary hosting sites should filter for quality and writing ability. If someone gets stuck in the same formula or rewrites their life in semi-soap-opera rant format, the site should be taken down, the person, etc.

We are a generation of poor pop-parenting techniques and a need for notoriety or fame. And unfortunately, we have no guidance; as people attempt to become more and more misunderstood each day.

There were way too many typos, grammatical errors, and words left out from the above paragraph.

I can assure you that it was nothing like my deep, thoughtful, incredibly emotional poetry; the kind that can only explain one man's journey through life with sure unbridled anger and sorrow.

It's really, really, REALLY deep.

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."

If only more people could take that message to heart.

and beautiful and unique snowflakes are going to get what's coming to them. Far better to be a grate big rat and pla with plastisene for free xpreshun.

two daddies, three mommies, and a pony.

Hear, hear, Staniel.

T.S. Eliot may have said it best, in "Tradition and the Individual Talent":

"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion;, it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from those things.

....The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done"

Although I have to say that I like Liz Phair, or at least a goodly portion of "Exile in Guyville". It's by no means artisitcally significant, but it's good rock n' roll. Plus "Flower" is just the sexiest goddamn song ever. I'd totally love to be Liz Phair's blowjob queen.

posthumous - Shit yeah! I entered that Poem of the Month on a lark, and am getting inundated with form letters left, right, and centre! I don't care about their uber-lame titled-books or symposiums tho, I'm still holding out for a cheque.

Oscccar - I'm working on my anti-Douglas Gordon rant right now.

Jacques - I just started my photography career! I can draw too, but taking pictures is so less labour-intensive.

Team G - I've got a relatively popular online diary, I participate in Song Fight, and I occasionally submit articles to a site that'll post people's rantings and then let any jackass comment like what they have to say is import--oh wait. BITCH.

I think the internet is more of a swirling void where all the awful shit that years even dumb people knew they shouldn't show to anyone surfaces. You might have shown your poetry notebook (with unicorns drawn on it) to your best friend and your multitudinous stuffed animals then hid it under the bed in the '80s, but the internet is full of people like you and you can all praise each other and eventually meet one to marry at Disneyland.

I don't think the pretentious sort of artist I was talking about, the kind who aren't instantly laughable, are affected much by the internet. Ampcast/mp3.com are comparable sending your demo tape to the community college radio station. People hear your song once, nod appreciatively or not, and you are forgotten (as you most likely should be).

I've hardly heard any Liz Phair. But God help me, I like "Six Dick Pimp."

Years ago, someone observed that the Internet is a tool, and like all tools, it merely amplifies your characteristics. So if you're stupid, guess what?

LiveJournal is dismal, as has been observed; IRC is even worse IMHO, because at least on LiveJournal, you have the opportunity to think through what you are going to say. Still, every once in a while, someone goes into Chat mode with an agenda, and it works out well. Like this.

If you're going to be a pome writer, be like Mickey Rourke in "Barfly"

love buck owens. I find it weird (or possibly IRONICIMAGICAL) how all these people have crawled out of the woodwork to say YEAH THATS WHAT I THINK TOO as if we care about THAT opinion any more than anything else. as a fag who's a poster on an e/n site and a livejournal owner i say fuck you faggots, I get fan art.

There - now wasn't that refreshing like a nice cold Coke which is of course an epic bubbly drama in a can.

Posting interesting anecdotes and opinions has nothing in common with I ATE A SANDWICH EARLIER IT WAS GOOD. THE GOVERNMENT MAKES ME CRY.

Hot today. My girlfriend packed me sandwiches for lunch. I think there's something crawling in my pants.

Maybe we could create a phony blog and have really bizarre and interesting things happen to our phony self. Except that nobody would read it but us.

It's kind of OK for blogs and webjournals to have the same subject matter as everyday conversation between friends. I just expect music and drama to be more diverting. Pretentious and boring are a bad mix, too, hence the focus on singer/songwriters.

I love the art that my friends make even if it perfect. I love making art
even if it isn't perfect. This article doesn't make sense to me. I'd like it
if people expressed themselves more.

And I could swear this article is being sarcastic though. School already does
that. This article reads like something from http://www.adequacy.org/

Many singer/songwriters are pretentious and boring, and cannot make a decent sangwidge.

I'd like to see a weblog kept by the Helicopter Lady.

"Batteries in my alarm clock were dead again this morning because Facilities Maintenance staff were using it to beam messages about me into outer space. The people at the deli counter turned on the mustard gas when I walked into Acme, just like I knew they would. BASTARDS. I told a nice young man at the electronics store who sold me a new battery that the NSA are watching me from black helicopters, but he didn't seem to believe me."

Yeah, that would be fine by me. NOTE: Based on true events. Really. From the horse's mouth, as it were.

Self-expression is fine. Egotistical drivel is not.

But you make me think of the '80s, so I can't hate you.

"Let's Bring Back Nostalgia"

I hate bumper stickers.

I like whitechocolatespaceegg, but hated exile in guvyille. For me it has to do with the music and not what she's singing about, since I can't really connect to her lyrics having never been a strong single woman or whatever.

I hate this guy I know who tells me that there's shit that he likes and other shit that he doesn't like. He don't know shit about nothing, and never accomplished anything, can't paint and doesn't know art, and don't know shit about music. So who gives a shit about what he likes or not? Who gives a shit about his opinion? Also, I point out to him that not having much of shit, he can't afford to be too damned particular. I hate vegetarians because there are all these restaurants that you can't go to, and when you go to restaurants with vegetarians, they always make a big damned scene. Like if they'd specify, I'd go to a Hindu vegetarian, but NO! I don't have any strong feelings about bumper stickers, not having a bumper. I hate lots of stuff! Not because I am very discerning and discriminating (actually, I can't tell shit from Shinola), but just because I've got a really pissy attitude.

"I hate lots of stuff! Not because I am very discerning and discriminating (actually, I can't tell shit from Shinola), but just because I've got a really pissy attitude."

Have I got a site for you!

OK, Jonas. Standby mode activated.

devilblues/dairyland? Yep, pretty whiny.

Oops! Not your site!?!? Well, it's sort of interesting after a while.

I think that it made me homesick for Vancouver!

...

4th July 1992



Here starteth My pain, Born into the world, as a midget siamese twin, i was flung into a coal shed by the orphange, for 12 years I sat in the dark eating coal, and singing the musical score of Mary Poppins to myself. Finally when the door opened I was dragged out by a dusty old guy with a deep cockney accent.
It turned out he was a chimney sweeper, he said he had got a letter directly from the queen, and how she hadn't had her chimneys cleaned for ages, and she thought one of her corgies had got stuck up there. The long and short of this was that she insisted a young naked well greased boy should clean them and so I was borne to the magnificent palace of buckington, stripped, greased, handed a tooth brush and violently pushed up a chimney.
I remember now the darkness was back, it was just like the old days, it must be written in my soul to be forced into small dark places, somehow its also linked with the fosilised remains of plant matter and the carbon compounds that result from its oxidisation.
At first I would not go any further up the chimney i stayed still and wedged myself above the hearth, not knowing what I had to do and what they wanted from me. In anger the chimney sweep started poking me with a poker, the queen ordered a fire to be lit under me.
I remember quite distinctly as the warm coals began to heat my body, the feeling of the cold brass poker as it prodded my arse cheeks, it was worse than the coal cellar I had to escape. I started to drag myself up the chimney, using the toothbrush like an ice pick, I climbed for what must have been miles, finally in the distance as I stared up I noticed a small dot of light, I continued climbing, my oily skin now scraped and sore. Many times did I slip down the chimney before I managed to halt my fall with the tooth brush.
It was dark as I pulled myself out of the chimney pot, the only light came from the roof tiles that were covered in gold leaf, reflecting the sombre light of a waning moon. My plan was clear I had to escape, but the palace was built like a prison, and soon the queen would have another child stripped greased and shoved up a chimney to find where I had got to. And when they found I was missing, the royal army would be alerted and there would be no escape for me and the prospect of being drowned in goats milk if I was caught.
A quick roam of the roof disclosed an easily climbable wall leading down to the ground, I shimmied down to the ground, and tryed to conceal myself in the shadows, as well as anyone who is naked and covered in oil can under the sombre light of a waning moon.
It was then I heard the commotion, They had found I had escaped, I could hear the marching of the guard and the filling of the great vat of goats milk, My life flashed before my eyes, My first piece of coal, the piece of coal I had sculpted into a piece of coal with another piece of coal, my pile of coal, and my coal bride.
Luckily it didn't take long, and I managed to steal some clothes off a rotary clothes line in the queens back garden and clothe myself, I grabbed a pair of small pink pantaloons, and a large frilly ball room dress, a black and red corset and a pair of fishnet stockings. I looked at my reflection in a nearby windows of the garden shed, and decided I could pass as a royal princess as long as the guards didn't look to hard.
It was then a plattoon of guards came marching round the corner, they spotted me and came running over ready to beat me into submission with there truncheons, at first they took me for a royal personage and were about to go when one of the guards spotted my oiled complexion, "Its him he's too oily for a princess" he cried, I hefted my skirt and started to run, I panicked where could I go, as I turned a corner I came upon a welcome sight a coal bunker. I lifted the lid and dived in making sure my pettycoat wasn't sticking out and held my breath and waited.
It wasn't long before I heard the guards, they searched high and low and I thought I had escaped, until one of them spotted the greasy stains my hands had left on the coal bunker when I climbed in. The shout went up he's in the coal bunker, the noise of truncheons being drawn was deafening, then suddenly a voice, It was the queens, "We will burn him", I heard as the disapointed noise of truncheons being undrawn happened, and the noise of combustibles being packed around the coal bunker ensued.
I was frozen with fear as I heard them splash petrol over the bunker, I heard the match strike and suddenly I heard the petrol ignite. The temperature started getting hotter, I could hear the the queen cackling "Burn Him, Burn Him". Resigned to my fate I laid my head down and closed my eyes.
I awoke what could have only been seconds later, I heard someone takling very quietly, it was the coal, my old friend, it spoke to me of a secret trap door leading to a 12 foot sewer that was always full of shit. It was my only way out. The coal parted revealing the floor and I heaved the trap door open, it informed me it would cover my escape by catching fire and burning with the hottest flame it could muster. I tightened my corset pulled up my fishnet stockings and dived into the full sewer. Instantly I was caught in a undercurrent and was swept away.


8th July 1992


I awoke on the muddy banks of some river I knew not of, my pantaloons and stockings were torn, and my ballgown was dirty and torn. I was still covered in oil, I think it must have been engine oil, it was viscous and sticky, and clung to my clammy skin like a limpet to a stone. I turned over and clawed my way up the muddy bank, having to stay flat and drag myself through the stinking brown mire to avoid sinking into the crap below me. Finally I arrived at the edge, which was made of stone, and topped with a metal railing, using my toothbursh again, i climbed up the stone and slid under the fence, exhausted from my ordeal, the toothbursh broke and so i threw it into the river over my left sholder just like my coal mother and father had taught me too.
Its a strange feeling of freedom when you've lived your life in a cellar about 3 feet by 4 feet with the only colour of black to keep you company. The distances seemed to telescope away the colour hurt my eyes, I was afraid, a large yellow ball in the sky was shining down illuminating like a really big light bulb, it hurt when I looked at it directly, not sure what to do I ran bare foot away from the brown streak that was the river, the ground seemed unsteady as I crossed a patch of grass, unfamilar textures completely unlike coal greeted my feet, then suddenly another stream this time of black macadam barred my way, upon it moved hideous monsters I had never drempt of even my wildest nightmares, Like a badly dressed fucked up frogger, I started to cross, confused at first as I didn't sink into the surface of the river of tar, the surface was hot though, and I ran avoiding the fast moving vehicles. it was then my blind panic failed me, and the wide open spaces hit me, like someone had thrown a brick at my gulliver. My vision swam and I felt nauseous, and I stumbled towards a dark alleyway trying to escape from the wideness of the outside.
Strangely enough the dark alley gave me little respite, no sooner had I entered I was cornered by a gang of youths. Seeing my androgyne contenance, they decided to have a little fun with me, they cornered me against a fence, and no matter how loud I shouted at them in the language of coal, they didn't seem to understand, I try to block the rest out I must have blacked out, they grabbed me and dragged me away, kicking and screaming at them, I thought things could never be worse after I had escaped from the chimney, but strangely for the next few hours I tried to think back to the seemingly enjoyable old days of being poked and burnt, and chased by soldiers brandishing truncheons, they finally dumped me in the rubbish bin belonging to an old glue factory, where I stayed until I was sure they had gone away, then I crept out and looked for somewhere to hide.
By this time the yellow thing in the sky had pissed off, and a grey covering had hidden the ceiling from this water started to flow, in drips and drops, I fled again, I remember that first night, as I gathered my ballgown around me, running away from the terrible sounds, the wide open spaces, wanting to get into as small and dark a space as I could. I eventually found a small room in a dilapitated building, about the size of a few large cereal boxes, I curled up into a ball and slept hoping I would wake up once again in my coal cellar. But this was to be my new home for a long time.

***********************************

Draw whatever conclusions you want from that.

You're right, that was boring. The corgi never turned up.

Anyone else?

THANK GOD IM NOT THE ONLY ONE!!!!!!!!!!!