Saturday, August 23, 2003
More work frustrations the last couple of days. Thurs. revised (on paper) about 14 pages, started entering them Fri. morning, rented laptop ate my floppy w/in three or four saves. Re-did a little of that work this a.m., realized I didn't really want to do it in shitty wordpad or Word Perfect (on which I couldn't see my footnotes), went up to Kinko's, forgot my disks, back to Congress, picked up disks, dithered in the bookstore I like but hadn't been into yet this trip, back to Kinko's, figured shit out -- including a screwy system of sending myself the files to I could work at Filthy's Internet Convenience Store (where I am now, during a monsoon, having just closed all the porn windows that the guy two computers away from me had left up), which seems to be ok, except the monsoon cut the power here for about 10 minutes -- fortunately, all I lost was a graph on fictional worlds, thanks to autorecover. Anyway, back at Kinko's (2nd trip), next to thoroughly annoying people trying to color-print wedding reception invitations (blah and bleh announce the formal union of their families) with an attention-seeking kid in tow. Coudn't concentrate on getting a certain point right (dumb, too, just something about the origins of intention based semantics), so after a while, and 12 dollars of paid for time, got a burrito and went to the -other- bookstore across the street, where I bought books on natural language semantics and ab ex like it's a nervous habit. Then to nearby library, where I did manage to at least REARRANGE my 75 plus-page typescript into the appropriate sections. By the end of this trip, I'm going to throw said away and have a clean running copy -- there was more maundering in there than I thought. Must, just -must- do about 10 pages of -something- a day between now and Bree's return. (Spoke to her again yesterday a.m., by the way, continuing to improve and about to go to London.) Then to Filthy's, where I am now and which I already in part described, managed to enter the same revisions for what seems like and may well be the THIRD time before the monsoon hit.
I'd rather be writing a poem or a song but I feel guilty and have no inspiration. In a different mood, I'd be going over to Wavelab to see how Buckner is faring, or going with Nick to Bisbee, or something, but all this crap between me and my mind is making movement impossible. Yeah, and -other- books, inc. an old edition of Tennis Court Oath yesterday (I bought -Meditations In An Emergency-, which I'd never had, a few days ago). This is exactly the kind of spewing use of language I kind of hate; I want precision, and I've got a slurry. Did buy some thrift-store shirts/shoes at Value Village for a change. Oh yeah, and I bloated myself like mad at an Indian lunch buffet yesterday. What am I resisting; what has drained my will and inspiration. The great irony is that as I feel more empty, I get more 'famous' -- I win a Godard tape on eBay and the seller asks if I'm Franklin from Nothing Painted Blue, same from a random Friendster contact who wrote b/c I put Cavell on my favorite authors list and she took his last undergraduate class, plus Pomona College wants to do a short interview (how can I -not- come off badly in that one?), even the guy who rented me the laptop vaguely knew I'm in a band. Oh, Rael got me about $300 on eBay for some tapes and posters.
Jenny's suggestion for writing fiction: Get two ideas for stories, write one in full on braniac style and the other in the terser style I would -like- my fiction to be in. Only take a week or so on each, so they're not the biggest deal in the world. I don't know about this, though I've got the ideas -- first a story about identical twin contemporary classical musicians ('Independence of Parts') and the other about that piece of mail with $400 bucks in it I got the first week or two I lived on Bronson. Put everything in, take everything out. But she's partially write -- what's wrong with my creativity right now is that everything is a big deal. I've written great songs, so every song has to be a 'major work.' Maybe I'll go see 'Northfork' tonight.
I'd rather be writing a poem or a song but I feel guilty and have no inspiration. In a different mood, I'd be going over to Wavelab to see how Buckner is faring, or going with Nick to Bisbee, or something, but all this crap between me and my mind is making movement impossible. Yeah, and -other- books, inc. an old edition of Tennis Court Oath yesterday (I bought -Meditations In An Emergency-, which I'd never had, a few days ago). This is exactly the kind of spewing use of language I kind of hate; I want precision, and I've got a slurry. Did buy some thrift-store shirts/shoes at Value Village for a change. Oh yeah, and I bloated myself like mad at an Indian lunch buffet yesterday. What am I resisting; what has drained my will and inspiration. The great irony is that as I feel more empty, I get more 'famous' -- I win a Godard tape on eBay and the seller asks if I'm Franklin from Nothing Painted Blue, same from a random Friendster contact who wrote b/c I put Cavell on my favorite authors list and she took his last undergraduate class, plus Pomona College wants to do a short interview (how can I -not- come off badly in that one?), even the guy who rented me the laptop vaguely knew I'm in a band. Oh, Rael got me about $300 on eBay for some tapes and posters.
Jenny's suggestion for writing fiction: Get two ideas for stories, write one in full on braniac style and the other in the terser style I would -like- my fiction to be in. Only take a week or so on each, so they're not the biggest deal in the world. I don't know about this, though I've got the ideas -- first a story about identical twin contemporary classical musicians ('Independence of Parts') and the other about that piece of mail with $400 bucks in it I got the first week or two I lived on Bronson. Put everything in, take everything out. But she's partially write -- what's wrong with my creativity right now is that everything is a big deal. I've written great songs, so every song has to be a 'major work.' Maybe I'll go see 'Northfork' tonight.
