Squorons and Scutterbotches
Have just returned from a remarkably squoron-free foray into the southwest. It was riddled with scutterbotches, however. My failure to distill the sound was rendered irrelevant by the absence of sound-production devices. Nothing much else to report. Tomorrow, at eleven o'clock in the morning, I will have given this damn talk. Then, I shall sleep.
You say 'ere long done do does did',
Words which could only be your own,
And then produce the text from whence was ripped ...
(Some dizzy whore, 1804)
The Smiths, 'Cemetry Gates'
I must be going crazy. I have spent the past few minutes meditating on the viability of the use of the phrase 'zero-dollar whore' as an insult.
In my opinion, a belief that the world is not capable of arbitrarily ruining your life is ill-founded. This comment made because someone expressed just such a belief to me recently.
On another tack: although I have a reputation for actively cultivating dislikes, including of people, there are very few people who I detest to the point that I would wage a campaign of aggression against them that crosses social boundaries indiscriminately. On the other hand, people I know who are generally thought to be friendly, pleasant and charming are perfectly capable of pursuing reckless vendettas for very little reason at all. When I decide to make a personal attack on someone, I prefer to spend some time trying to ensure that it will actually work. Rather cold and calculating, I know.
I wonder what these public diaries are really for. Lately I've been noticing a little more soul-baring than usual going on within the pages of those that I read. Why would I want to know the details of the past relationships someone has had, or the vicissitudes of their academic lives, or how often they've done this or that in the past week? It's not like I was particularly interested in this information before the people in question actually started keeping these journals. My only tentative conclusion is that it's the medium itself that creates interest in the content, and that this is why updating becomes such a craving. If you read a web-log often enough, then much like any crappy television show its internal logic starts to become addictive, regardless of its quality. Metaraves of this kind provide no excuse for my desire to feed the manufactured interest of my small readership.
For example, suppose I sit, and turn to writing some of the turgid fiction that is admired by a few of my logging colleagues:
He sits, writing turgid fiction for a tiny audience, his features darkly lit by the quiet glow of the screen. To his right sit the worm castings of an ongoing addiction, three empty Coke cans, one partially crushed by absent-minded fidgeting.
Once he had hopes, dreams, vanities and plans - now these have been beaten down by the weight of the years, leaving only a crippled volition towards complaint behind. His belly is distended by a surfeit of potato chips. By the bed sits a wastepaper basket overflowing with used tissues.
He ponders taking up smoking, idly positing the change as part of a wider scheme to upgrade his addictions from the maudlin, quotidian variety to something ever so slightly - so very slightly - more unusual.
The words in the slowly forming document sit end to end like so many dead slugs, extolling the implausible characteristics of the pathetic gothic antihero that sits in as protagonist in so many of his wish-fulfilment fantasies. A man who is just like him - alone, self-hating in the dark, an introverted narcissistic shadow - but at the same time unlike him in every conceivable way.
He scratches himself where his stomach overhangs his stained gym shorts, poking out from beneath the sweat-stained conference freebie T-shirt he wears. Once these shorts accompanied him on fitful visits to the fitness centre, but now they are simply the centrepiece of the wardrobe that corresponds to his inescapably somnolent lifestyle.
A first sentence springs to mind: 'He sits, writing turgid fiction for a tiny audience ...' No, it's gone. He'd like to call it writer's block, but unfortunately that will always be nothing more than an exaggeration.
I'd like to note for the record that my current surroundings, clothing and habits do not resemble those of the subject of the preceding narrative very closely at all. Happily.
Have just returned from a remarkably squoron-free foray into the southwest. It was riddled with scutterbotches, however. My failure to distill the sound was rendered irrelevant by the absence of sound-production devices. Nothing much else to report. Tomorrow, at eleven o'clock in the morning, I will have given this damn talk. Then, I shall sleep.
You say 'ere long done do does did',
Words which could only be your own,
And then produce the text from whence was ripped ...
(Some dizzy whore, 1804)
The Smiths, 'Cemetry Gates'
I must be going crazy. I have spent the past few minutes meditating on the viability of the use of the phrase 'zero-dollar whore' as an insult.
In my opinion, a belief that the world is not capable of arbitrarily ruining your life is ill-founded. This comment made because someone expressed just such a belief to me recently.
On another tack: although I have a reputation for actively cultivating dislikes, including of people, there are very few people who I detest to the point that I would wage a campaign of aggression against them that crosses social boundaries indiscriminately. On the other hand, people I know who are generally thought to be friendly, pleasant and charming are perfectly capable of pursuing reckless vendettas for very little reason at all. When I decide to make a personal attack on someone, I prefer to spend some time trying to ensure that it will actually work. Rather cold and calculating, I know.
I wonder what these public diaries are really for. Lately I've been noticing a little more soul-baring than usual going on within the pages of those that I read. Why would I want to know the details of the past relationships someone has had, or the vicissitudes of their academic lives, or how often they've done this or that in the past week? It's not like I was particularly interested in this information before the people in question actually started keeping these journals. My only tentative conclusion is that it's the medium itself that creates interest in the content, and that this is why updating becomes such a craving. If you read a web-log often enough, then much like any crappy television show its internal logic starts to become addictive, regardless of its quality. Metaraves of this kind provide no excuse for my desire to feed the manufactured interest of my small readership.
For example, suppose I sit, and turn to writing some of the turgid fiction that is admired by a few of my logging colleagues:
He sits, writing turgid fiction for a tiny audience, his features darkly lit by the quiet glow of the screen. To his right sit the worm castings of an ongoing addiction, three empty Coke cans, one partially crushed by absent-minded fidgeting.
Once he had hopes, dreams, vanities and plans - now these have been beaten down by the weight of the years, leaving only a crippled volition towards complaint behind. His belly is distended by a surfeit of potato chips. By the bed sits a wastepaper basket overflowing with used tissues.
He ponders taking up smoking, idly positing the change as part of a wider scheme to upgrade his addictions from the maudlin, quotidian variety to something ever so slightly - so very slightly - more unusual.
The words in the slowly forming document sit end to end like so many dead slugs, extolling the implausible characteristics of the pathetic gothic antihero that sits in as protagonist in so many of his wish-fulfilment fantasies. A man who is just like him - alone, self-hating in the dark, an introverted narcissistic shadow - but at the same time unlike him in every conceivable way.
He scratches himself where his stomach overhangs his stained gym shorts, poking out from beneath the sweat-stained conference freebie T-shirt he wears. Once these shorts accompanied him on fitful visits to the fitness centre, but now they are simply the centrepiece of the wardrobe that corresponds to his inescapably somnolent lifestyle.
A first sentence springs to mind: 'He sits, writing turgid fiction for a tiny audience ...' No, it's gone. He'd like to call it writer's block, but unfortunately that will always be nothing more than an exaggeration.
I'd like to note for the record that my current surroundings, clothing and habits do not resemble those of the subject of the preceding narrative very closely at all. Happily.
