3/30/92

Isn't my difficulty with writing narratives,
the same problem I have with
dealing with "boring" details in
everyday life. I realized reading
the Auster book is that he takes
the trouble to construct all the "boring
details" that creates the feeling of an
actual scene- yet the writing has the
"driven" quality of the aphorisms
of E.M. Cioran!

The aphorisms contain all the
same qualities as the Auster books-
doubts, suspicions, exaltations, above
all *impulses*- but Auster organizes
them around specific *scenes*. So
you could write a novel with a
visual storyboard- index cards.

"I have all the defects of
other people and yet everything
they do seems to me inconceivable."
p. 31 E. M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born

"Easy to imagine the elements,
bored with their exhausted theme,
disgusted by their invariable and
utterly predictable combinations,
seeking some diversion: life would
be merely a digression, merely an
anecdote" (Cioran, p. 47).

4/7/92

The professor stood by the door
with his right elbow in his
left hand and a thoughtful
expression on his face. "We don't
know what is really out there," he
said.

"We don't know what awaits us
in time or space. This existance is
surely in between something and something
else...

"At times it feels as though we had
been sent here on some serious
mission without having any idea what
it might be. Or that we have been
sent here to find something out
without the means of verifying that
whether what we have discovered
is that something."

*

Joan Retallack's poems remind
me of the necessity of allowing
"negative" feelings (this label
implies a value judgement) to emerge
in the poem. The words of everyday
life, the thoughts of everyday life,
one no more "representative" of
what the experience of life is than
a random listing of current
magazines. What is
"current" is largely illusory,
a projection based on a number
of largely unconsciously held,
socially determined, assumptions.
Besides this, the "unfolding" of life
from birth, to youth, to middle
age, to old age is perhaps
also somewhat illusory. Although
events appear to us in a consecutive
fashion, we learn early on of the
reality of what the whole of life
includes, which encompasses aging
and dying. Attention to the innumerable,
constantly emerging epiphanies,
demands and frustrations of everyday
life also shields us from
focussing for very long
on an overview. Ambitious
plans, fantasies, memories, disap-
pointments, hungers, frustrations
constantly lead consciousness away
from an "aerial" or overall
view and towards focussing on
the significance of emerging events for
the next upcoming planned sequence
of actions.

4/20/92

The "key" in which you tell a tale
is the equivalent to the "key" in
music. It's a tone of voice
and an attitude combined.

4/22/92

You arrive at truth through
poetry. I arrive at poetry
through truth.
Joseph Jourbet

Indifference to poetry is one
of the most conspicuous
characteristics of the human race.
Robert Lynd

Habits are first cobwebs, then
cables.
Spanish Proverb