In a world that usually lets me down, the certainty that I will always fail is something I’ve come to depend on. I’ve developed a tremendous faith in my inabilities. When all of life’s questions overwhelm me in the dead of night, I don’t need to wonder what the future holds for me. I have the peace that comes with the knowledge that no matter what happens, I will probably get it wrong anyway. And it’s a really good feeling. I highly recommend it, actually, as a lifestyle choice. Once you decide to be a failure, it’s amazing how everything crystallizes. It’s easier to make decisions, too, when you can be sure of the outcome.
Author Archive for Naomi
If anyone actually reads this, let me know.
Note from Nathan: Comments might be broken. Email west(at)invisiblebirds(dot)com if you tried to post but can’t.
I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve just been broken up with and haven’t had the courage to write much these days, or do much at all. I sit in my chair by the window. I’m turning into Eli, which is disheartening. That’s what happens when you work on the same material for 2 years. Your process becomes more and more insular and circular until you realise that you are not writing a character, you are writing your own existence on a parallel plane, and you and your character exist as empty mirrors for each other. When one of you suffers the other one laughs, nervously, and then goes back to thinking about blood in lungs or old banisters or whatever it is that old men think about when they are trying not to be a twenty year old woman who is in denial of the fact that she is secretly a dying old man.
I’m terrified to be in public lately. I’m afraid something will happen that will make people notice me. Something horribly embarrassing. They’ve just put up the signs downtown that say
“Caution: Falling Ice”. Every time I leave my apartment I’m afraid I’ll be struck by an iceberg, and splayed on the sidewalks of the theatre district. Which would attract a crowd. I just read Edgar Allen Poe’s “A Man of the Crowd”. (which is good to read if you’re into Baudelaire’s work) It was about a man that couldn’t exist apart from a crowd of people. All he does is follow wherever the crowd is thickest. I think I’m the opposite. I shrink from people. I’m a misanthrope, I think. I live in hateful fear.
It offers no answers. It looks at culture, and then it: reacts in indignation, stages reflections, burdens with implications, attacks corrosively …advances no answers whatsoever. This I love.
On another note, the problem with left culture is that it can only mobilize through guilt. Think about it. It’s true.
Anyone who has been to an airport lately has heard the stern voice announce over and over that the terror threat has been elevated to Orange. We were talking about this in class the other day. What is the purpose of this announcement? What are you supposed to do? What can you do?
You can do nothing except experience a constant low level of anxiety, which is exactly the feeling this announcement intends to produce. So much of today’s politics is nothing but a mobilization of panic.
Going to what is arguably the most conceptual art school in the country, I find that issues of dress often come up. I feel that, while students of other disciplines may be as flamboyant or hip as they please, there is a certain style that is specific to the serious writer. As a serious writer, you should dress so as to not exist. You should be so nondescript that you dissolve before the eyes, an apparition. The sad fact of writing is that you are always observing, never participating. It’s impossible to actually take action, at least in any way that is seperate and other from the act of observing. Since this is the way it is, you may as well accept it and adopt that philosophy as an element of personal style. You should be the most anonymous person you’ve ever seen. Not merely anonymous, not merely bland, but literally invisible. This is also important because, if you are me, there is nothing more problematic than the fact that you exist and nothing more desirable than the idea of appearing not to.
I don’t think that dressing this way requires buying “mall clothes” or going “mainstream”. That would be helpful to no one. But I do find that it often involves grey wool.
I guess all sentences need to be based on verbs. If you have a good verb, you have a good sentence, and if you have good sentences, you have a good piece. Sentences are to writers as brushstrokes are to artists. They’re your mark, and all work is nothing but an assemblage of made marks. If you have a good verb you will not need any modifiers, ideally. Modifiers should be avoided because they clutter everything up and inevitably drag everything down. Some people believe that avoidance of modifiers inhibits style by forcing an economy of words where they would favor “lush” writing….I’m sorry, but too many adjectives isn’t “lush”, it’s distracting and unnecessary. You don’t want to overdescribe things. When you overspecify every image you end up with a non-image.
I forgot to mention the excellent album “Down the River of Golden Dreams” by Okkervil River.
Highly recommend.
1. Belle and Sebastian “If You’re Feeling Sinister”
2. Nick Drake “Pink Moon”
3. David Bowie “Ziggy Stardust”
4. Neutral Milk Hotel “Aeroplane Over the Sea”
5. Cat Power “Moon Pix”
6. Sun Kil Moon “Ghosts of the Great Highway”
7. Bob Dylan “Blood on the Tracks”
8. Smog “Knock Knock”
9. Air “Moon Safari”
10. Bela Fleck “The Bluegrass Sessions”
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