[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBnAY426gaY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
This satire having all the more resonance when you consider Beckett had a habit (modelled on qui? It will come to me, the writer who obsessively journaled… gah) of noting such things in his journal.
Post note: Jules Renard Journal Intime (sp?)
Rhotic 15
Ding,
Conas is ceann chun maireachtáil in áit más rud é nach bhfuil aon mhaith a bheith adhlactha ann?
An gceapann tú tá sé ina fadhb?
Is féidir leat smaoineamh faoi thalamh a bheith ina gcónaíonn tú anois?
A man continues to delight me!
C’est toujours l’écrivain Monsieur Fraser.
Today I was on the very odd invention that I call a ski-ing machine, no one else calls it that, but it looks like elevated skis tramping through the air, and these two handles are inconveniently located and tend to clout me in the head if I am not careful. I am an ardent believer in the art of multi-tasking that I take to a sad and ridiculous level. Thus I was on the machine mostly to read and secondly, a very distant second, to puff.
The book precariously balanced, I held it rather than the flying handles and tried not to knock myself out before I’d covered the pages I intended to.
In the quest to put eyes on the page I somehow forgot to turn the machine on, which was perfect, since I’ve little intention of getting galvanized over those mounting digital blocks that are supposed to encourage progress but when I see them mounting I immediately want to dismount and take up a supine position in the nearest corridor.
So as I skied unheeded, unimpeded, I read DM Fraser’s story The Examination about a teacher (Prof?) planning to divorce his wife, amidst a treaty of text on how to write an examination.
The small trickyness with ski-ing midair and reading is the text becomes blurry. So the only thing was to read it aloud. The neighbouring ski-machines (they are not called ski machines, but sure never mind, name them at your leisure), with more intended for the purpose occupants make so much whirring — they actually make a noise if you use them properly — that it would drown out my bleating.
Until the puffing began. The point being the story had to compete with blurred vision, panting delivery, and the odd clout on the eyebrow from a flying pole. And still again it rose.
The final line:
At the end, proofread.
had me in stitches.
Two cinematic forays this week, both at the same cinema. At one, The Sweet and the Bitter, a discussion followed the film. A few moments stand out: sat in the middle of cinema a man described his excitement at living beside where the film was shot at age 11 (1962) and “waiting” for it to appear in the cinema (it didn’t til 1967). At the back of the cinema, a woman (who I think said her ma appeared in the film) described how the film was the beginning of what we call Hollywood North (bascially films being shot here in Vancouver), how the actors in the film got “their breaks” and other comments that related to context on the Japanese-Canadian content of the film. At the front of the cinema, a man described gentrification and uttered the words “we don’t want it” in relation to films being shot here (Hollywood North) and the Olympics.
So there we had it: waiting, beginning, we don’t want it. I appreciated how these points of view and voices could share the oxygen. As this is not always the case. Also there was a palpable appetite in the room for people to talk about their city, as though there is a dearth of opportunities.
I thought about many of these events I’ve been to where discussions take place and it struck me how we so rarely hear the voices of ordinary people in relation to whatever artistic event has taken place. I’ve actually been at events (one at the library) where some of the writers present were actively irate because a member of the public went off on a mad irrelevant tirade. Hello it’s a public venue! If you only want to hear people who speak your language and behave and view things on your terms organize a private party with the 35 people who agree with you and have read the books or watched the films you’ve watched.There’s a significant distance between talking at people and engaging with them.
Visual arts can be particularly intimidating and excluding in this way. Hermetically sealed, such events demand invasion by the populous. Go and be at them, in them, among them. Ask your questions loud and proud and confused.
The disappearence of what I’ll call the “lumpen” writer/artist has created a ditch between writers and readers.
Some of the more interesting encounters I’ve had are usually with seemingly mad people going off on a major tirade, but who in actual fact turn out to be very sane and articulate.
Rhotic 14
Ding,
Nuair a labhairt le daoine i ngnáthnós poiblí an fáth a bhfuil sé sin deacair ar roinnt chun éisteacht le guthanna a, chun iad a éisteacht a fháil.
Uaireanta smaoineamh mé faoi sin.
Rhotic 13
Ding
Mé leithscéal, a bhí ag labhairt liom féin agus ag caint maith agus an lá a bhí ar siúl amach le liom.
Conas T?
Aris, amárach, beidh mé iarracht tú.
Tá sneachta ag teacht go creidim.