Thothmuffin
Don't get any crumbs on the scale of judgement.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Squeeze the Weasel
After I presented my creative writing thesis to the English department, my major advisor, a woman whom I admire greatly, gave me one of the best compliments I’ve ever received:
Advisor: I hope you’ll take this as a compliment when I tell you that, after hearing your thesis, I think you’re completely nuts in all the right ways.
TM: (genuinely moved) Thanks, that means so much coming from you!
This interchange merely corroborates for me that creativity is identical to insanity, or perhaps these are two just different ways of looking at the same thing.
Nuts is seeing everything in the world as potentially absurd, significant, or squeezable, hopefully all three. The absurd and the significant may seem to be at odds, but just because you laugh at something—seeing its incongruities, its cruelties, its faults—doesn’t mean that it has no meaning. Sometimes the laughter is the meaning.
And don’t forget squeezing. I suspect that insanity, creativity, comes from a sudden pang of desire to encompass something completely with your every sense, to wring from it your own subjectivity because you love it (or fear it, or hate it, or desire to know it) too much to allow it to remain an object, outside.
The artist sees the world in a way that no one else sees it—a mark of insanity, if ever there was one—and, in the creative moment, is completely absorbed in that unique, artistic sight. Sometimes critics and theorists approach artistry as they stand outside worlds and change them to their own perspectives, but too often their squeezing lacks the proper love, asphyxiating the interpreted object. They are not a part of that object; they do not recognize the complicity of their own madness in the object’s being.
I think it was a Bond villain that said the only difference between genius and insanity is success. Genius, some would say, is the incomprehensible, inimitable power of mind that pleases and performs as it creates. Insanity, then, yields unpleasant and repugnant fruits, fruits without seed or tree. But the artist recognizes insanity and genius as the same squeezable weasel, a writhing rodent of metarific subjectivity. This singular creature is outside morality, though of course each of its endless brood of pups is answerable to morality.
Thus, to be nuts in the right way is to have created something good, something not thought of before, something fundamentally impossible for any other subjective mind to have formulated, but which, nevertheless, pleases or shapes or aids those other minds. It means you have pressed sweet liquors from the delirious ermine that only you may see and which you endlessly desire, and that you have inebriated other minds with the love, if not always the sense, of your peculiar sight.
Aww. I’m blushing.
*No weasels were harmed in the making of this entry.
Advisor: I hope you’ll take this as a compliment when I tell you that, after hearing your thesis, I think you’re completely nuts in all the right ways.
TM: (genuinely moved) Thanks, that means so much coming from you!
This interchange merely corroborates for me that creativity is identical to insanity, or perhaps these are two just different ways of looking at the same thing.
Nuts is seeing everything in the world as potentially absurd, significant, or squeezable, hopefully all three. The absurd and the significant may seem to be at odds, but just because you laugh at something—seeing its incongruities, its cruelties, its faults—doesn’t mean that it has no meaning. Sometimes the laughter is the meaning.
And don’t forget squeezing. I suspect that insanity, creativity, comes from a sudden pang of desire to encompass something completely with your every sense, to wring from it your own subjectivity because you love it (or fear it, or hate it, or desire to know it) too much to allow it to remain an object, outside.
The artist sees the world in a way that no one else sees it—a mark of insanity, if ever there was one—and, in the creative moment, is completely absorbed in that unique, artistic sight. Sometimes critics and theorists approach artistry as they stand outside worlds and change them to their own perspectives, but too often their squeezing lacks the proper love, asphyxiating the interpreted object. They are not a part of that object; they do not recognize the complicity of their own madness in the object’s being.
I think it was a Bond villain that said the only difference between genius and insanity is success. Genius, some would say, is the incomprehensible, inimitable power of mind that pleases and performs as it creates. Insanity, then, yields unpleasant and repugnant fruits, fruits without seed or tree. But the artist recognizes insanity and genius as the same squeezable weasel, a writhing rodent of metarific subjectivity. This singular creature is outside morality, though of course each of its endless brood of pups is answerable to morality.
Thus, to be nuts in the right way is to have created something good, something not thought of before, something fundamentally impossible for any other subjective mind to have formulated, but which, nevertheless, pleases or shapes or aids those other minds. It means you have pressed sweet liquors from the delirious ermine that only you may see and which you endlessly desire, and that you have inebriated other minds with the love, if not always the sense, of your peculiar sight.
Aww. I’m blushing.
*No weasels were harmed in the making of this entry.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a necromancer!
Do you have any idea how hard it is to acquire a little honest-to-goodness necromantic knowledge these days?
The problem is that necromancy is the new self-help, apparently. Most of the recent stuff I find is your basic equivalent of Chicken Soup for the Necromantic Soul. Looking through books on the occult in your average bookstore is like trying to reconstruct an accurate timeline of the Warring States Period in Japan using anime as your only resource. (Mirage of Blaze included. You know, the kind of source that borrows all the confusing parts of history and requires that you have a Ph.D. in Japanese Feudal Warfare to follow the plot and character interaction when all you wanted was a little reincarnated scrumpity scrump. But I digress.)
Why do I want to know about necromancy? I’m writing a book set in an old sk00l, medieval, elemental magic world. Hence, I would like to know how people who believed themselves to be necromancers conducted their rituals in medieval Europe. I want texts. I want translations. I want history, names, analysis of origins. But what do I get?
Drek, that’s what I get. And don’t let them tell you it’s nonsensical just because you’re not in tune with the Great Mystery, or haven’t properly conversed with your Inner Light Angel Chakra Goddess Avatar. Somewhere along the line people confused “occult” with “incomprehensible.” I feel like many modern (dare I say New Age?) books just borrow terms at random and string them together, vaguely alluding to prior incarnations of occultism in a vain attempt at securing some small authority. Putting aside for now the fact that even many of these authorities are far too modern for my purposes anyway, you might protest that since the whole point of magic is to be esoteric, why would anyone bother writing texts on the occult with definitions, indexes, bibliographies, and, you know, coherency?
Because, I will answer you, only a certain set of people interested in practicing magic to secure power (or, as sometimes happens, fleecing the gullible of a pretty penny) wish it to be esoteric and obscure. Those interested in studying the psychological and social structures that support and encourage deviant ritual (look, it's me!) really want things to be laid out as frankly as possible.
So here we reach the crux of the matter—I don’t want to practice magic. I don’t want to summon Mallo-Cthulhu, or use virgin boys to catch thieves (necromancers are a colorful folk, aren’t they?), or fulfill the great spiritual void in my life by conjuring a scrumping spirit because other people just aren’t tantric enough for me. I want to know about meta-magic, the hows and whys of magical systems and ritual.
Magic doesn’t work. I simply want to know why people think it works, so that I can construct a believable world in which magic does work.
So, it comes down to the age-old question of how much research is too much. I could spend years rifling through hundreds of modern self-help guides, hoping to glean enough that I can construct my own theory on the basic aspects of magical practice throughout the ages in our world. Or, I could ritualistically pound my head against the bookshelves and hope that my blood and tears will create some sort of sympathetic magic that will convey the answers directly to my bruised yet attuned synapses.
Luckily for everyone’s health and peace of mind, I think I’ve found a better way. His name is Richard Kieckhefer, and he has a Ph.D. that allows him to write authoritative and intelligent books on magical practice in the Middle Ages. He’s taken a Latin grimoire and translated its collected rituals, grouping them in theoretical categories and analyzing their purpose and methods in order to make intelligent commentary on the practitioners and their society.
He’s brilliant. Why is he unique?
If anyone’s interested in this, I can post more about Kieckhefer’s book as I get reading. Also, if any of you with your assorted interests and keen minds can recommend books of the type I require, I would be most grateful. Keywords: summoning, necromancy, incubi, ritual, elemental magic, medieval magic (1100-1500).
Sleep, I abjure thee!
The problem is that necromancy is the new self-help, apparently. Most of the recent stuff I find is your basic equivalent of Chicken Soup for the Necromantic Soul. Looking through books on the occult in your average bookstore is like trying to reconstruct an accurate timeline of the Warring States Period in Japan using anime as your only resource. (Mirage of Blaze included. You know, the kind of source that borrows all the confusing parts of history and requires that you have a Ph.D. in Japanese Feudal Warfare to follow the plot and character interaction when all you wanted was a little reincarnated scrumpity scrump. But I digress.)
Why do I want to know about necromancy? I’m writing a book set in an old sk00l, medieval, elemental magic world. Hence, I would like to know how people who believed themselves to be necromancers conducted their rituals in medieval Europe. I want texts. I want translations. I want history, names, analysis of origins. But what do I get?
Drek, that’s what I get. And don’t let them tell you it’s nonsensical just because you’re not in tune with the Great Mystery, or haven’t properly conversed with your Inner Light Angel Chakra Goddess Avatar. Somewhere along the line people confused “occult” with “incomprehensible.” I feel like many modern (dare I say New Age?) books just borrow terms at random and string them together, vaguely alluding to prior incarnations of occultism in a vain attempt at securing some small authority. Putting aside for now the fact that even many of these authorities are far too modern for my purposes anyway, you might protest that since the whole point of magic is to be esoteric, why would anyone bother writing texts on the occult with definitions, indexes, bibliographies, and, you know, coherency?
Because, I will answer you, only a certain set of people interested in practicing magic to secure power (or, as sometimes happens, fleecing the gullible of a pretty penny) wish it to be esoteric and obscure. Those interested in studying the psychological and social structures that support and encourage deviant ritual (look, it's me!) really want things to be laid out as frankly as possible.
So here we reach the crux of the matter—I don’t want to practice magic. I don’t want to summon Mallo-Cthulhu, or use virgin boys to catch thieves (necromancers are a colorful folk, aren’t they?), or fulfill the great spiritual void in my life by conjuring a scrumping spirit because other people just aren’t tantric enough for me. I want to know about meta-magic, the hows and whys of magical systems and ritual.
Magic doesn’t work. I simply want to know why people think it works, so that I can construct a believable world in which magic does work.
So, it comes down to the age-old question of how much research is too much. I could spend years rifling through hundreds of modern self-help guides, hoping to glean enough that I can construct my own theory on the basic aspects of magical practice throughout the ages in our world. Or, I could ritualistically pound my head against the bookshelves and hope that my blood and tears will create some sort of sympathetic magic that will convey the answers directly to my bruised yet attuned synapses.
Luckily for everyone’s health and peace of mind, I think I’ve found a better way. His name is Richard Kieckhefer, and he has a Ph.D. that allows him to write authoritative and intelligent books on magical practice in the Middle Ages. He’s taken a Latin grimoire and translated its collected rituals, grouping them in theoretical categories and analyzing their purpose and methods in order to make intelligent commentary on the practitioners and their society.
He’s brilliant. Why is he unique?
If anyone’s interested in this, I can post more about Kieckhefer’s book as I get reading. Also, if any of you with your assorted interests and keen minds can recommend books of the type I require, I would be most grateful. Keywords: summoning, necromancy, incubi, ritual, elemental magic, medieval magic (1100-1500).
Sleep, I abjure thee!
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Playing Favorites
Step 1: Pick your 25 favorite words in the English language.
1. quiescent
2. susurrate
3. arbiter
4. form
5. raptorial
6. zephyr
7. chrome
8. spleen
9. tempestuous
10. caress
11. acquiesce
12. malediction
13. defy
14. esoteric
15. puissance
16. redolent
17. lascivious
18. autumn
19. stymied
20. delineate
21. impervious
22. squelch
23. gaze
24. cerulean
25. impertinence
Step 2: Write a story using all of your favorite words, and no more than 25 others.
(50 total)
The zephyr in autumn, redolent with tempestuous puissance, susurrates across quiescent chrome. The arbiter gazes with raptorial spleen at the cerulean sky and defies the caress with an esoteric malediction. Hardly stymied, the breeze squelches his impertinence as it lasciviously delineates his form. Not impervious, he acquiesces.
1. quiescent
2. susurrate
3. arbiter
4. form
5. raptorial
6. zephyr
7. chrome
8. spleen
9. tempestuous
10. caress
11. acquiesce
12. malediction
13. defy
14. esoteric
15. puissance
16. redolent
17. lascivious
18. autumn
19. stymied
20. delineate
21. impervious
22. squelch
23. gaze
24. cerulean
25. impertinence
Step 2: Write a story using all of your favorite words, and no more than 25 others.
(50 total)
The zephyr in autumn, redolent with tempestuous puissance, susurrates across quiescent chrome. The arbiter gazes with raptorial spleen at the cerulean sky and defies the caress with an esoteric malediction. Hardly stymied, the breeze squelches his impertinence as it lasciviously delineates his form. Not impervious, he acquiesces.
Monday, April 05, 2004
On the Use of the Third-Person Impersonal Pronoun
Those soldiers arrayed on the heady ramparts of gender-queer and gender-fuck have long been stymied in their efforts to form a more androgynous thought by the twin siege engines “she” and “he.” Anne Fadiman has written a lovely essay from a civilian viewpoint in this battle, which nicely delineates the awkward position of a writer who wishes to sound concise and poetic but also does not wish to offend or exclude anyone from—ah!—there’s the rub.
from their writing?
from one’s writing?
from his writing?
from her writing?
from his/her writing?
from the writer’s writing?
All of these options feel woefully inadequate.
My general policy has been, when speaking in the general, to use the plural forms—e.g. “writers who wish to sound. . . .in their writing.” This works well enough in academic contexts and sacrifices very little of poetry. But what of the individual combatants? How are we to refer to each of them if their pronoun of choice is unknown?
Some people in the transgender community prefer “zhe” and “hir”, and though I appreciate the sentiments behind that choice, the poet in me still winces at this ungainly reconfiguration of the more usual pronouns. Not to mention how it takes me back to Middle English. I’ve yet to meet a transgender person who presents these as their preferred pronouns without a sense of irony and slight embarrassment; perhaps it’s different within the community, but to me it usually seems a very activist and political move that’s a little too self-conscious to really catch on in everyday usage yet. More power to the people who insist on it, but I’m not exactly sure I want to throw it into my daily writing when I’m trying to make a point unrelated to gender issues. (Yes, occasionally it happens).
And then it occurs to me that there isn’t really any need to invent a gender-neutral pronoun in the English language, because we are already supplied with a grammatically correct and well-established pronoun: it! The best objection people can raise against “it” is the supposed impersonality and thingdom it implies. I maintain that it would be easier to fix this than it would be to insert newly invented pronouns into our discourse. I believe “it” should be reclaimed.
Of course, as the previous paragraph makes clear, “it” is used quite often in set grammatical patterns and as a vague referent, which could potentially get confusing. Take this example:
Blaise walked to the store. It was hungry and needed some food. It was cloudy outside, and it hadn’t brought an umbrella. What would it do if it started raining? It could hardly avoid it for much longer.
The case seems hopeless. However, adoption of “it” in the sense I propose might help add much-needed zest to writing. See how this reconfiguration tickles your fancy:
Blaise walked to the store, hungry and in need of food. Clouds hovered overhead, and Blaise hadn’t brought an umbrella. What would it do if rain began to fall? The weather could hardly avoid turning precipitate for much longer.
Perhaps such an adoption would encourage people to eliminate vagueness and vacuous use of colloquialism from their own writing! Although, judging from the difficulties I encountered in revising the above passage and in avoiding just such vacuousness in this essay, “it” as the all-purpose pronoun might take more effort than it is worth.
But on the level of general speech, when only the singular will do, I still find “it” an alluring solution. Compare (with respects to Anne Fadiman):
To each his own.
To each their own.
To each its own.
It works well for the less poetic maxims. But is something lost in the following?:
Man must grasp his destiny.
Humans must grasp their destiny.
A human must grasp its destiny.
The main problem in the last sentence is the necessary article before “human.” If that, too, could be erased, the phrase might regain the pithy zing of the original without the emphasis on cock. (And here you thought I was going to keep this entire entry clean and academic. Pah!) Now that I look at the first phrase more closely, I am struck by the oddness of the usage of an article-less single “man” to represent all of humanity, which is then given a singular possessive pronoun in bold defiance of the intended sweeping generality of the statement. It should really be “A man must grasp his destiny,” but for some reason the word “man” gets special privileges. Well, I can fix that!
Person must grasp its destiny!
Graal. I’ll keep trying. . .
from their writing?
from one’s writing?
from his writing?
from her writing?
from his/her writing?
from the writer’s writing?
All of these options feel woefully inadequate.
My general policy has been, when speaking in the general, to use the plural forms—e.g. “writers who wish to sound. . . .in their writing.” This works well enough in academic contexts and sacrifices very little of poetry. But what of the individual combatants? How are we to refer to each of them if their pronoun of choice is unknown?
Some people in the transgender community prefer “zhe” and “hir”, and though I appreciate the sentiments behind that choice, the poet in me still winces at this ungainly reconfiguration of the more usual pronouns. Not to mention how it takes me back to Middle English. I’ve yet to meet a transgender person who presents these as their preferred pronouns without a sense of irony and slight embarrassment; perhaps it’s different within the community, but to me it usually seems a very activist and political move that’s a little too self-conscious to really catch on in everyday usage yet. More power to the people who insist on it, but I’m not exactly sure I want to throw it into my daily writing when I’m trying to make a point unrelated to gender issues. (Yes, occasionally it happens).
And then it occurs to me that there isn’t really any need to invent a gender-neutral pronoun in the English language, because we are already supplied with a grammatically correct and well-established pronoun: it! The best objection people can raise against “it” is the supposed impersonality and thingdom it implies. I maintain that it would be easier to fix this than it would be to insert newly invented pronouns into our discourse. I believe “it” should be reclaimed.
Of course, as the previous paragraph makes clear, “it” is used quite often in set grammatical patterns and as a vague referent, which could potentially get confusing. Take this example:
Blaise walked to the store. It was hungry and needed some food. It was cloudy outside, and it hadn’t brought an umbrella. What would it do if it started raining? It could hardly avoid it for much longer.
The case seems hopeless. However, adoption of “it” in the sense I propose might help add much-needed zest to writing. See how this reconfiguration tickles your fancy:
Blaise walked to the store, hungry and in need of food. Clouds hovered overhead, and Blaise hadn’t brought an umbrella. What would it do if rain began to fall? The weather could hardly avoid turning precipitate for much longer.
Perhaps such an adoption would encourage people to eliminate vagueness and vacuous use of colloquialism from their own writing! Although, judging from the difficulties I encountered in revising the above passage and in avoiding just such vacuousness in this essay, “it” as the all-purpose pronoun might take more effort than it is worth.
But on the level of general speech, when only the singular will do, I still find “it” an alluring solution. Compare (with respects to Anne Fadiman):
To each his own.
To each their own.
To each its own.
It works well for the less poetic maxims. But is something lost in the following?:
Man must grasp his destiny.
Humans must grasp their destiny.
A human must grasp its destiny.
The main problem in the last sentence is the necessary article before “human.” If that, too, could be erased, the phrase might regain the pithy zing of the original without the emphasis on cock. (And here you thought I was going to keep this entire entry clean and academic. Pah!) Now that I look at the first phrase more closely, I am struck by the oddness of the usage of an article-less single “man” to represent all of humanity, which is then given a singular possessive pronoun in bold defiance of the intended sweeping generality of the statement. It should really be “A man must grasp his destiny,” but for some reason the word “man” gets special privileges. Well, I can fix that!
Person must grasp its destiny!
Graal. I’ll keep trying. . .
Friday, April 02, 2004
LOTR Personality Test
You are most like
The Dwarves
As the halls of Moria show, Dwarves like building and inventing.
The world exists to be explained and analyzed. You prefer to work quietly without interruption. Time alone is important and solitary activities refresh you. You have a tendency to introspection. In your desire for clarity in life, you may have the tendency of being remote or even "heartless". You like keeping your options open. Closure is probably not one of your strong suits.
As the foil to Aragorn, Sauron clearly embodies the evil side of this personality.
Traits: Pragmatic, autonomous, ingenious, resolute. On the dark side you could desire power and domination.
Take the LOTR Personality Test!
The Dwarves
As the halls of Moria show, Dwarves like building and inventing.
The world exists to be explained and analyzed. You prefer to work quietly without interruption. Time alone is important and solitary activities refresh you. You have a tendency to introspection. In your desire for clarity in life, you may have the tendency of being remote or even "heartless". You like keeping your options open. Closure is probably not one of your strong suits.
As the foil to Aragorn, Sauron clearly embodies the evil side of this personality.
Traits: Pragmatic, autonomous, ingenious, resolute. On the dark side you could desire power and domination.
Take the LOTR Personality Test!
Thursday, April 01, 2004
I better go "caulk" the "tub" *wink wink*
In honor of National Poetry Month, I'm going to revel in language. First up:
Top Ten Clean Words that Sound Sexual
1. prandial
2. prostrate
3. incumbent
4. seamen
5. puissant
6. gala
7. uvula
8. quiche
9. caulk
10. spork
Top Ten Clean Words that Sound Sexual
1. prandial
2. prostrate
3. incumbent
4. seamen
5. puissant
6. gala
7. uvula
8. quiche
9. caulk
10. spork
