AudioShocker

Remember last week, when I had that little note at the bottom of the post about what was going to come up this week? And I said "Thoreau's Walden (and I fucking mean it!)"? Well, I didn't really mean it. I try to keep my personal life out of these articles as much as possible (except for the occasional weird ominous poster from where I live), but, my failure to finish Walden has me scrambling for excuses, so I'll let it slip: I'm moving out of the apartment where I live (the one with the EVIL), then leaving the country for several months, so I've been, like, busy. But I really did start to read Walden. I got about 12,000 words into it (which I think represents maybe 44 pages or so), so, like, that's more than just picking it up and then putting it down again. But not really impressive.

So what can we take from all this? Well, so far, two quotes in particular caught my eye:

"All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant."

This obviously appeals to the serious artist in me, as a major strain not only in my own work, but in conversations with my colleagues, is about concentration, and the value of concentration. And whether it is appropriate, in an ADD-raddled age, to still expect one's viewers/listeners/readers to, like, actually pay attention to what you've produced. This ties in to the question I was asking last week, where I was concerned that I read graphic novels too fast--that there's something there that I'm not taking the proper time to savor (I try to appreciate the art, and notice great layout and pacing when I see it, but in more standard fare, I'm often at a loss for what I should be noticing).

There's an interesting tension that arises in a lot of creative works, around repetition. I suppose especially in music and poetry, where there are refrains or formal patterns that repeat themselves. But it comes up a lot in comedy as well, via catch phrases, running gags, call-backs, etc. And even in comic books as certain frames or set-ups are repeated in certain ways to provide continuity through and across multiple books (I know that as I work on writing Time Log, I'm always looking for spots where I can set up a situation that directly mirrors another one that has already happened in the story (and maybe that really only makes sense in time travel writing, or maybe I'm just an amateurish hack (or all of these things)). But then, even once we've admitted repetition as a central element in cultural creation, some number of artists will immediately want to claim that there really is no such thing as repetition, since, as Thoreau states, change is always happening, so at best repetition is a kind of recycling uncanniness. And all of our lives are just hauntings.

"To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust."

And see there, isn't that nice? It sure is. But you can see that even reading just the first ten-thousand words of Walden allows me too much chance to indulge my artistic self, which is totally inappropriate for the usual wielding of the awesome cudgel of cultural criticism that I flail around with here.

But... I'm going to keep reading Walden, and dammit, I'm going to finish it eventually. I can see now how ridiculous it was to try and read this in 11th grade, on the time table of a high school English class. There's no reason to motor through this stuff! I mean, the fact that I've come around to deciding to read it myself certainly clues in the fact that I'm looking to be inspired by it (I'm trying to think of what, if anything, I was inspired by in 11th grade... maybe... you know, I don't really remember what I was reading in 11th grade, outside of stuff required for class. But I've always self-identified as a reader, so I must have been reading something...), so will probably continue to find quotes that I like.

And I think part of the problem is that I've been trying to read it as an e-book, rather than as a paperback, and that definitely isn't helping. In fact, I'll probably wind up taking the time here one of these days to go ahead and find an actual copy of the thing, 'cause then it'll be way easier to read.

Luckily I've got just the scheme to buy myself a couple more weeks to finally read it... original short fiction, written by my brother Nate, will be appearing for the next two weeks. It's a story which also serves as a great epilogue to Nick and my awesome Tournament Movie Tournament from back in the Spring. So stay tuned next week for Part I of... SUPER FOOT TO HEAD!