Tuesday 19 February 2008

I am writing for generations to come...

Anonymous: "Didn't really follow the rest of your missive."

Nor did anybody else, it seems!

So, my last post - Freddy and the Pope - was a regretful - and I sincerely anticipate - momentary lapse in my otherwise flawless literary concentration. Frankly, to try and explain my real understanding of the world and its conundrums would be impossible since I really do not understand myself. Even if I described it minutely to everyone of you, I still wouldn't succeed in reproducing the phenomenon of personal ratiocination precisely. I feel, on the other hand, perfectly justified in interpreting problems and proposing solutions with that part of my brain which makes me different from the ordinary mortal. It is not, after all, as if I were bound by the old rules of decorum that used to constrain the female sex. On the contrary, it seems almost as if it could dispense with problems and solutions and exist on a plane of pure perception. Truth to tell, an equivalent to my own cerebral computing power - which is roughly one million billion calculations per second - has to date only been achieved by harnessing nearly 700,000 Sony PlayStations 3s, and it appears to me a matter of perfect poignancy, that, though opulent, affluent, elegant and attractive, I am still unclaimed, uncommitted, unconquered and love walking on fuck-me-stilettos!


Anonymous: "you should be locked up.........."


So I should, and I will not introduce mitigating circumstances. If people had their way, I’d be in a 21st-century courtroom being tried for witchcraft.

It is not, however, a matter that affects me greatly. I have committed myself to a much more ambitious enterprise. I am writing for generations to come. It is a tough decision, but I’m up for it. No doubt, that is my proper place in history. Indeed, will anyone believe me if I assert with a perfectly straight face, that, today, we are but culturally conditioned clones, performing functions which are known to be predetermined. We commonly suppose that a writer’s scope and talent is a psychological ‘given,’ something innate, a vocation rather than a profession - but far from it. For one thing, mere escapism has superseded hard-edged introspection. For another, writers of books may no longer please themselves. They first need to please the editor or indeed, the agent, rather than the prospective reader. As a result, they are obsessed with the need to draw attention to themselves. They write in a different way, in a way that proves disastrous. As in quantum-electrodynamics, the smallest change in the rule of the game affects the overall outcome. This is the quantum literary principle and the key to understanding contemporary mass-psychology - with a particular scepticism reserved for those who are at the bottom of it all:

Bloggers rather than authors!

Dreamy

13 comments:

Uncle Dick Madeley said...

I think blogging is often about rushed, half-thoughts and experimentation. It's not at all like writing for publication. So, in that spirit, I enjoyed your little intellectual wander. I've merely been preoccupied by the toils of commuting to make leave a decent comment other than a rather lame and poor taste joke about the Pope's sausage.

Jonathan said...

'For another, writers of books may no longer please themselves. They first need to please the editor or indeed, the agent, rather than the prospective reader.'

Can one imagine Socrates and chums preliminarily staking out the terms of the dialogue such as to maximise interest from the Athenian masses in their exploratory discussions before proceeding?

'today, we are but culturally conditioned clones, performing functions which are known to be predetermined'


Ours indeed is a tired and weary, second hand culture. Much thought is half-heartedly focused into replicating and subverting its established aestehtic and philosophical forms, on thin ice, in the face of the void.

I think we know that we want to say and see something new but we dont really know what this new thing is, or might be. So we cling to repackaging of the extant, and in the absence of something binding between people and the transcendent,are left with little more relaible than talking about the self.

Anonymous said...

Hold on there, "Dreamy" old girl......I didn't say I wasn't entertained, it's just that it was hard to figure-out what the hell was coming next, but that doesn't meant to say that I didn't want to read on, and THAT is a gift..........

It's very possible that after the next Ice Age, some three headed reptillian from the Planet Tharg will find your lap-top and, after extensive translations, (they will have to be) you will be acclaimed as a genius on the level of Jackie Collins or Dame Barbara Cartland........who I think is the last person I saw wearing those shoes.)



'Mous

Selena Dreamy said...

Richard, your presence alone is balm, and your courtesy, as ever, impeccable.

Commuting is dire! May I suppose that you carry a laptop for your en-route entertainment?

Selena Dreamy said...

Jonathan said: on thin ice, in the face of the void.

And what is worse, Jonathan,the void is staring back at us...

Selena Dreamy said...

Ahhh...Anonymous, you flatter me in the first round - before your left hook catches me like a sucker punch in the second!

I always admire a job well executed!!

Dreamy

Anonymous said...

If you jacked off the pope for a fiver would he keep all the sperms?

Selena Dreamy said...

Hey Mutley, I've just come from yours, were you out...?

Uncle Dick Madeley said...

A laptop? Do you think I actually get a chance to sit down on the train? No, I have to stand all the way there and back, usually stuck outside the toilet occupied by some secretarial type with over-ripe gastric juices. I cannot begin to describe how bad the last two days have been...

Anonymous said...

I was in the Pub round the corner - you should have joined me - I would be happy to stand you a Cherry B!

CityUnslicker said...

just come by this place - great writing with a bit of spice. cool.

keep it going.

Selena Dreamy said...

I cannot begin to describe how bad the last two days have been...

Gosh, that's terrible, I feel for you (or perhaps you're handing out autographs all the way, Richard?).
D.

Mr Cityunslicker, Sir - I tried to access your blog, but it made my computer crash (perhaps you, too, are an extraterrestrial?)

D.

Jonathan said...

'Jonathan said: on thin ice, in the face of the void.

And what is worse, Jonathan,the void is staring back at us...'

Well, this is not what I believe, Dreamy. I believe the universe is a raging self-knowing self-delighting ebullient fire of plenitudinous joy. Only we do not see this....rather, we see the void, and shadows of insufficient light dancing upon it.

Of course I could be wrong. Indeed it has not that rarely been said that I am mad:) Yet my belief that I am not wrong underlies my fundamental optimism. Yet it is an optimism of the depths, not of the surface, whereupon indeed doom is primary resident, mefears.