REALITY? & WRITING: Habits II

Posted on May 14, 2004 by Susan

Crap. Every time I figure I’m ready to pull the plug some jackass comes along and sticks another quarter in the slot.

El esposo tells me how proud he was of me at the honors ceremony, and that he hadn’t realized how much it meant (I guess I still don’t). Then in a rare talkative mood, “You just have a way of writing that appeals to a lot of different people and they want to keep on reading. Except you shouldn’t give directions because you have no sense of direction at all. So when you do, you make people want to follow them and they end up getting lost.”

Sweet man. Anyway, it got me back on the computer.

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REALITY?: Habits

Posted on May 14, 2004 by Susan

Reality is forcing me to moderate my spare time habits. As well as putting more time into my home–the back yard flora and fauna aren’t calling, they’re screaming–and getting caught up with my workload during the all too brief break between semesters, I must make the time to read. I have enough of a backlog of books to read to stack them up to build that house addition I wanted so badly before the stock market crashed, taking my dreams with it.

This also necessarily may mean cutting back on writing, both here and in my fiction attempts. For Spinning I seem to have run out of intelligent concepts to share, and in short story attempts, I’m failing dismally at anything beyond minor changes.

I just need some time to think, and be alone. If there’s something I think might interest you, I’ll still be posting.

That’s my plan anyway. We’ll see…

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CURRENT AFFAIRS: Political Statement

Posted on May 14, 2004 by Susan

Over the past several weeks, I have dipped my finger into the political waters in an effort to not only learn, but be able to feel confident enough to voice an opinion on the presidency, Iraq, war, and all the issues that we both face and make decisions upon daily.

I felt that since the media cannot always be trusted as an accurate source of information compounded with some unavoidable bias by both reporters and the conglomerates they represent, using the weblog community as a directory to information plus the wealth of diversity in opinion would be a valuable tool.

They are, but they are also useless in this main way: They are political statements of opinion only.

While there are many bloggers who seem to have an intelligent and non-partisan take on current affairs, there are many more otherwise intelligent, delightful people who rationalize with emotion rather than research. From some very insightful postings I’ve gleaned some different viewpoints that have altered or clarified my own point of view. But there are some nuts out there as well. Mainly, however, there are armchair politicians who are understandably outraged and feel the need to express their take on current events, especially in light of the American abuse of prisoners, and the execution of Nicholas Berg.

There is also a growing pressure among some bloggers to cover these areas, and I admit, I too fell into the trap, not wanting to seem apathetic or worse, and hey, when someone tells you to speak up, when you read everything from intellectual discourse to downright idiotic ravings, and you’re a writer, you jump right on the bandwagon. Well, I’m hopping off here.

While I will not discontinue reading the blogs that may seem to go beyond reasonable thinking (in my opinion only, of course) I will not hold it against them, and will patiently wait till sanity returns to enjoy their finer writings. Even what I might consider the most trustworthy of reports ends up twisted to suit personal beliefs. I will also not post any more here on current events. I have opened up one of my other blogs to post my own opinionated ravings that will be kept to myself, but since blogging is so easy and fun and offers instant catharsis, it will offer me a place to get things off my chest, but without spraying the universe with more useless rhetoric.

So I care, I’ll read, I’ll blog my own opinions elsewhere and thus avoid adding volatile fuel to an emotional fire. I’ve learned much already, and besides being saddened and affected by the events, what I’m fascinated by is what seduced me into voicing my opinions at all.

It all comes down to perception.

Update: Some entries have already been deleted from Spinning that were posted earlier this week, simply as a matter of removing political content.

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LITERATURE: More On Perception

Posted on May 13, 2004 by Susan

With a horrendous headache, I lay down upon the couch and finally got a chance to do some reading. First story in the latest Confrontations issue, Fall 2003/Winter 2004, although I’ve skipped around and already read some of the others.

I put it down several times, it seemed a bit dragged out, made me anticipatory and eager, but frustrated as there seemed to be no conflict, nothing being built up into, until the end. The story is About Oil, by Karen Malpede, and is the first chapter of a novel. Ms. Malpede is quite credentialed so I defer to opinion and reserve judgment of the writing, putting down my disappointment to my headache.

Covering a period of about one year in the protagonist’s life from the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers, it reads like a fictionalized account of the writer’s political feelings, but in too journalistic reporting a form. Basically it follows the character, Daniel, in his mental stress after narrowly missing being killed at his office on the 104th floor simply by having errands to run and arriving late. He becomes obsessed with digging up all details past and present relative to both the terrorist act as well as the state of the union and spends almost all his time on the computer both hunting down information and eventually e-mailing every member of the House and Senate to seek their help in ending the war in Iraq, blaming President Bush and focusing his hopes for a return to sanity on Senator Paul Wellstone who alone voted against the war. Wellstone is killed along with his family in a plane crash, and our protagonist, now feeling completely alone, drowns himself in the river nearby the site of the missing twin towers.

First, there’s the author’s perception of real events. Then as I read this story, mine–both my general views on life as well as being able to relate to the event as something that is current. Then, there is the need to verify the facts and figures related in the story. And then, this: Is the story simply relating events in narrative form, or is it this–what happens when someone becomes obsessed with an idea, as Daniel did.

Interesting. While the reading seemed tedious, so are Daniel’s efforts as his obsession grows. Maybe this story is more skillfully written than I first thought.

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REALITY?: Common Sense

Posted on May 13, 2004 by Susan

I run into the house from the frameshop for a quick something to eat. Running by, I log onto Spinning, open my e-mail program, grab a bag of pretzels and a slice of cheese to settle a moment, read and eat. At the sound of the UPS truck slowing down I close out all open Windows, start for the kitchen door. The shop phone rings inside the house, I go back to answer it before the answering machine can pick up. “Good afternoon, Frame Artisan,” I say, then listen for a moment and reply, “I don’t know.”

Racing out the door I see the UPS truck pull away, passing right in front of my neighbor who is sitting in her car at the end of the driveway, across the road from her mailbox, withing twenty feet of my shop door, hanging up her car phone from her call to me. As I go inside my shop, she pulls out slowly, driving by just up a ways to turn around and pass by again to glide to a stop in front of her mailbox. A moment later, she turns back into her driveway, pulls back out and drives by the shop again, this time disappearing down the street.

Another day. Another “Did the mailman come yet?”

I don’t know. I don’t know if he has.

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WRITING: Story

Posted on May 13, 2004 by Susan

Even in the face of more pressing matters, people dying close and far away, I would write a story if I could.

I pretty up with phrases, turning four thousand words around, but still I’m lost in my direction.

Last night I brought up from the cellar the book I’d written in three months, now six years old and left alone to wildness in its ways. Again, I cannot tell a story.

My strength, it seems, appears to be revealing bits and spurts. Although, I guess, it is the way we started life. My maternal instincts warped but well intentioned, reluctant to primp and pad and push my children into the world and thus away from me; instead I cling to little vignettes that make me think. Is Spinning then alone my only child?

I’m getting weird again, and every insight is applied to every aspect, every thought, to make the day more treacherous yet more enlightening than it needs to be.

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REALITY?: & WRITING: Cycles

Posted on May 13, 2004 by Susan

Moods synchronomous with daylight, sun and moon, daily, monthly, stages in our lives.
Perception and Interpretation of the world we live in; acceptance that the answers are different every time.

How can someone not like the taste of glorious mushrooms? Or the almost chewy heft of Fudgicles or Friendly’s Forbidden Chocolate deep and dark, but not too sweet.

Contemplation calls for folk songs of the past today. The sensuality of Willie is placed carefully back in its plastic cases to ride another day.

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REALITY?: Nature and Natural

Posted on May 13, 2004 by Susan

An incredibly beautiful day. What a day to turn to dust and spend just “blowin’ in the wind” to see the world and get a glimpse of answers.

All my thoughts of man and his kind wrapped up in a squirrel and five minutes’ worth of watching what he does. Evil animal, the squirrel. He wreaks destruction on the beauty all around him, caring not that eating will prevent the tulip from its bloom, when seeds are hanging in a bounty all around him. Why does he scamper up the bending birch, to turn around and find his way back down again. His tail a graceful balance to his footing; unfurling fur in rippling silver grey to catch the sun. This time, this time he finds the morsel that he seeks, and pairing up, they bound back to the nest and feed their young. Natural in nature, creating and destroying is part of the rhythm of their lives

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LITERATURE & WRITING: And Art; P & I

Posted on May 13, 2004 by Susan

A very interesting article in the NY Times today that confirms my earlier musings on art belonging to the public.

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Why Attack Art? Its Role Is to Be HelpfulBy ROBERTA SMITH

Published: May 13, 2004

“Almost as long as there has been art, there has been iconoclasm. In these days of anger management courses, we might call it art rage. A work of art offends people’s religious or political beliefs or their sense of propriety, and they take matters into their own hands and damage or destroy it.”

“Art’s job is to provoke thought in ways that are difficult to resolve and uncomfortable; it’s a relatively neutral place to experience the unresolvable issues that dominate real life, to practice a kind of abstract flexibility that might move us toward resolution in real life.”

“In a sense all artworks aspire to be arguments for argument’s sake. They are places to entertain new thoughts and try out opposing viewpoints and to practice tolerance and flexibility. Real life needs all of these things as much as it ever has, if not more.”

My only disagreement is the non-generalization of “art’s “job” and “all artworks aspire…”

Since it is truly up to the individual, than these statements are in direct conflict with the thought.

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WRITING: Setting

Posted on May 12, 2004 by Susan

Wrapped in black, or gunnysack grey and shaven head, because hair just needs attention. Simple and serene, a paper house upon a hill, big empty rooms, just three, and mats upon the floor. Tables short, like me, and windows, many windows for the light and breezes to enter through. Dabs of color, here and there, very little to distract; enough to contemplate. A streak of blue for thinking, a gash of red for rage, yellow for the pretty thoughts and black, and white of course. A single vase of flowers, seen differently each day. Soft grass without, and pebble walk, each pebble unique in shape and size. Twisted trees for shade, leafy for the sun.

And my computer.

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REALITY?: Fair Weather Friends

Posted on May 12, 2004 by Susan

The hummingbirds are back. Jim pointed out a male Ruby-throat sitting on a bush in the back yard, just about an hour after I finally put out the feeders.

For the past couple of years, I’ve noticed a female first. Last year, I was sitting on the back step in my bathrobe—which seems to attract them as it is grass-green satin with raspberry collar and cuffs (either I look like the biggest flower and so full of promising nectar, or the biggest male hummingbird, and so full of , well, you know)—and she flew up to me and hovered about two feet from my face, after first checking the lilac tree where the feeder usually hangs.

I like to think that this female is the one I saved in the neighbor’s entryway a couple years ago trying to escape and helplessly flying up against the glass window. I dislike things that jump or fly too close to me, but I screwed up my courage and grabbed a dishtowel and caught her safely within it (they’re so tiny, it is scary because they seem so fragile) and set her outside on a bush to recover and fly away.

That’s what I like to think, anyway.

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WRITING & LITERATURE: Interpretation & Perception

Posted on May 12, 2004 by Susan

Knew that if I just stewed about it a while I’d come up with something (see previous post). No, not an answer, exactly, but a temporary way around it so that I don’t have to dwell on it for another week.

Perception: 1 a) The act of perceiving or the ability to perceive; mental grasp of objects, qualities, etc. by means of the senses; awareness, comprehension b) insight or intuition, or the faculty for these 2 the understanding, knowledge, etc. gotten by perceiving, or a specific idea, concept, impression, etc. so formed.

Interpretation: 1 The act or result of interpreting; explanation, meaning, translation, exposition, etc. 2 the expression of a person’s conception of a work of art, subject, etc. through acting, playing, writing, criticizing, etc.

(Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition, IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. Foster City, CA 2001)

Obviously, both perception and the resulting interpretation are up to the individual perceiving and interpreting. This then, would mean that anything, art, literature, the freakin’ monitor screen are all open to description and understanding by the individual. So far, score one for the art and literary world and the belief that a work belongs to the user/viewer/reader (remembering, of course, that this is only my interpretation of the dictionary definitions).

However, score one for Susie: MY interpretation is what I believe the artist/author is saying (subject to change, due to a conscious decision based upon further perception that may include other people’s interpretations).

How’s that?

If nothing else, this little exercise will prevent my frustration and further lack of understanding of different points of view. I need no longer merely tolerate, but give consideration to other opinions. Sounds like simple common sense, and you may be thinking I’m a bit slow for just happening upon this bit of knowledge, but just surf the web for fifteen minutes and you’ll find that from art to politics, a lot of people are way behind me in accepting this concept.

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WRITING: Getting It Down In Writing

Posted on May 12, 2004 by Susan

Good Grief, I’m at a loss for words!

Actually, the words are there, the idea has been since last night, and the only problem seems to be that the longer it remains unwritten, the more it grows, splits, multiplies, and follows different paths.

The idea is about perception, something I’ve blogged about many, many times. You may be bored to tears by my thought process on it by now, but, well, sorry…I still haven’t gotten it clear in my mind yet. Basically it developed once again from a conversation yesterday with my friend, Neha, regarding editing and revising our work, workshopping at our group meetings, and the art is for personal interpretation theory.

Stubborn little sh.. that I am, I still want to see it my own way–which conflicts with the above theory in that my theory is to see it the artist’s way. I want to understand what he means by the symbolism. I want to know why he put a red streak in the middle of the canvas, and not accept that to me it means “the tearing of the soul of women in the pre-feminist era.”

If I’d have sat down and started typing at that point, I might have had a post ready this morning. Not a great one, nothing profound, just my viewpoint. But then things started to get complicated by current events, and I realized how one pretty factual incident can be seen in so many ways. Not just the various reports, but one single report and all the different feelings and responses by the very same words. The answer, of course, is our perception of everything around us that exists or happens is recorded differently in each of our minds, based upon the experience stored within up to that time. (Bummer, I have forgotten which school of philosophy this goes under, and if I go check to refresh my brain, this pre-post won’t even get finished.)

Perception. Twicky subject. I’ll try to sort it out a little better in my head before I try to put it into words.

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WRITING: Words and Pictures

Posted on May 11, 2004 by Susan

The new camera sits with just a photo of my feet in front of a computer screen. I’ve yet to take the time to learn to use it.

And yet I must; for how else can I show you the Crackers of The Concrete World; the determined purple row of valiant violets and the dandelion king who rebel against the boundaries of the soil to root and grow and bloom within the cracks of cement stairs and walkways?

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REALITY?: Creating

Posted on May 11, 2004 by Susan

I love the physical feel of a pencil in my hand. I love to watch the trails it makes on paper. Writing, drawing, algebra, tomorrow’s grocery list. Lines that squiggle and squirm, go straight to meaning or swirl around combining loops and dips to form a cohesive picture; a story, an idea, a formula with depth and proportion that still, in its intricacy of symbols woven out by the mind alone reveals a truth or lie, a fact or pure emotion.

Simple tool, a pencil.

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