Have you heard of Michel Houellebecq? I feel like a fool. Never heard of him until yesterday when I read this book review (link). I will have to give him a go. I'll probably start with "Platform," one of his earlier works though some others are supposed to be his best. I'm afraid, though, that he will put me in the mood I get from reading Camus or Beckett, a nothingness bordering on despair. Why would I want to go there?
For art's sake.
I'll end up feeling the way this photograph looks.
But I kind of do right now, anyway. Sort of like sucking on a mouthful of nickels.
There are things in life that don't want you to be happy. Maybe a book by Houellebecq will make me feel better. If not better, then at least as if traveling with a companion.
The weather here, though, would make you happy. Yesterday's and today's. The sun is out and the light is brilliant. Highs in the mid-seventies, lows in the mid-fifties. But if you don't live here, don't come. There are too many people here already.
O.K. Today is a factory day. I must prepare myself for what is already becoming alien and more loathsome to me--a job. I've been taking more days off than I work, and I can already tell I won't miss working. If I can turn my attentions to what I want, I should be more than fine. For almost all of us, making things, no matter how paltry, is pleasurable. We can't see our own work with an objective or truthful eye, and the illusion of what we perceive sustains us. Right? Eugene O'Neil knew that it is our illusions that sustain us. Even for Mr. Houellebecq, I presume. Making those books counters the despair that he otherwise could feel.
Perhaps. At least.
ReplyDeleteNo. I've not heard of him either. But I am a Fool so it doesn't bother me much. At least when I'm not working. I'm a good worker bee when I'm working. But man off the clock - a royal Fool.
And it is good to have friends that can keep opening doors to the new (even if it is only new to me and not the entire world).
What a provocateur huh? That review was well written too tho wasn't it?
Remember "Broken Flowers?" I love that movie.
Jarmusch said the ending is about:
"yearning for something that you're missing and not necessarily being able to define what it is".
I went reading yesterday about the literary mode "carnivalesque" - I got to it because I was doing some re-reading about the "sacred & profane." A topic I once spent a long bit of time immersed in. I was going to use it in a comment over at Q's. But I got all lost in thinking, looking, reading and couldn't pull it together.
I got to there thinking about dangerous art.
Anyway.
It seems like a good morning to read "The Wasteland."
The Poet used to say Everything leads, passes through, goes, is going through that poem. Asis/aswas/aswillbe was a tag line he used often.
He was so often full of despair. And yet part of him - so childlike. I think my job, in our relationship, was to remind him (and hopefully provide) the constant possibility of the often fleeting but scarring moments of joy life offers.
Thanks for the space to process. As always.
The photo reminds me of an early sci-fi movie or something. That sky is so ominous.