Tag Archives: knowing something

Writing In Spite of Everything

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I gleaned a couple of basics from Anne Lamont’s book of writing advice, Bird for Bird. First and foremost, writing “is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work.” (7)

She also goes on to state that many readers “buy into the simplistic concepts of character and plot because it is much easier to embrace absolutes than to suffer reality, as reality is unforgivingly complex.” (104)

These two essential ideas aside, she does miss how the nucleus of the process is in the marvel of entering another realm, knowing something there and chittering at the edge of that, loving the moment for as long as it might last.

In other words, it’s essentially about having the etching tools and a place to set up.  

Tarkovsky’s “Nostalgia” Half Asleep

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Why are Andrei Tarkovsky’s films even a thing? They’re a meandering mess with endlessly long shot after long shot, slow tracks in and slow tracks sideways, sophomoric monologues about coping with existence dribbling on. Pretentious artsy crap. But I’m obsessed.

I was over tired when I went to see the recently restored version of Nostalgia. As much as I was enraptured by the opening shot, I was already falling asleep. It seemed a volatile thing because that’s where Tarkovsky lives, on that line between consciousness.

On the verge of madness? Was that it? Or clarity? A distant voice called out. A following tracking shot across a drained pond. I was almost scared. Or maybe I was and couldn’t admit that. I was understanding something, or forgetting what I thought I knew.

I Have An Expiration Date Too

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I’ve been hearing the rabbits screaming at night. Have you been hearing that? I was told that it’s just the dogs killing them.

As soon as the veil goes down, that’s when I thought I would know something. But then it wasn’t that. I was just pretending, and that was it.

I’m here. I think I know that. I mean, I look back and remember most things. But I remember who I thought I would be. And I’m good. Almost.

Who I say I think I am

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I try to think about who I am and what I know, but I don’t know what any of that means. It’s a thing off in the distance, someplace that I thought I might have been, even convinced myself of that, and have now lost.

I know what I want to be. No, that’s a lie too. Even if I said that I knew what I want, or that I thought that I knew that, I wouldn’t. The more I think that I know the who and what, the more I’m further from it because I think that. It’s a façade.

Confidence is the thing, believing in those lies is what makes you that you in you. The deeper you get, the further you are from the same. A gosh-darned paradox!

And so…something else. Drugs and whores! No confusion there. Or all confusion. Signs of it all gone awry. At least it’s not a façade. Or the façade of facades. Good copy anyway.

You Think You Know Something

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And then you don’t, and everything goes down with that, making you feel like nothing, certainly nothing like before, when you said and did things like you knew what you were doing. It’s not just the big things – death and disease and Trump – but more the tiny bits suddenly gone – train delay, store closed, panhandler no longer there – creating doubt about what might be next. No job, no love, civilization done. And then we have to get used to that.