Sunday, January 16, 2011















The problem with writing isn’t what to say but the reverse.

Every topic is a Pandora’s Box with seemingly endless parenthetical statements, or footnotes, waiting to be attached.*

It might be easier to write in 3 dimensions, with tangential points affixed in a more direct and less tedious manner.**

Of course there’s always editing.

But then the twisted-form-that-is-the-beauty-of-the-bonsai-tree is lost.

The form of a thing, its constraints, helps define its beauty - note the Sonnet or Haiku.

As my father would say, “it’s like life itself.”***

And in this case, he may be right.****



*Miles Davis is said to have mentored a young and talented but overly prolific George Benson:

“Ever feel like you could play anything at any time?”

“Yes.”

“Now don’t.”

**Come to think of it, a 3-D story sounds kinda cool – each line or individual thought, typed, cut and shellacked onto a dowel, with adjoining thoughts attached at varying angles, like the branches of a tree - they could be
handwritten, or expressed with images, or notes of music! Hmm…


***Yet another of my father’s seemingly throw-away but perhaps deeply ironic lines -Could be an inane and nasally intoned, “plastics, my boy, plastics!” or it could be more like Voltaire’s Candide with “it is the best of possible worlds!”

****Not that D.O.D. aka "Dear Old Dad" is oft wrong, but, the finite span of one’s own life - book-ended by oblivion – what could be more beautiful, terrible and poignant? : )

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:34 PM

    Oft?
    D.O.D.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:47 PM

    Is there some sort of topic avoidance in play? I'm confused.

    ReplyDelete
  3. 1. Oft - archaic but shorter than often.

    2. Confused - me too. My writing keeps expanding, exponentially, until I'm not sure what the hell I'm saying anymore. It would seem easier to hold the entirety of the world in my head than it is, currently, to write a single complete thought.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous9:14 AM

    I know what oft means,Dipshit. The implication is that I'm never wrong.
    D.O.D

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous8:25 PM

    I always enjoyed your writing. Maybe if you start, you will be able to clear your head by leaving it all on the page.
    K

    ReplyDelete