You need a concrete coal, as well. The longer you keep to these basics, the easier the act of writing will become. Don’t wait for the muse. As I’ve said, he’s a hardheaded guy who’s not susceptible to a lot of creative fluttering. This isn’t the Ouija board or the spirit-world we’re talking about here, […]
I make things. I often use tools other people have developed, e.g., hammers (some people forge their own hammers, I don’t) and screwdrivers and saws; cameras (some people make their own cameras, I don’t) and printers and developing tanks; ovens and baking pans and measuring cups. But in the end, I use those tools to […]
Empty love of pageantry, stage-plays, flocks and herds, jousting, a bone cast to lapdogs, crumbs thrown into a fishpond, the toil of ants carrying their burdens, skurryings of scared little mice, puppets moved by strings: amid such environment therefore you must take your place graciously and not “snorting defiance,” no you must recognize the fact […]
I find physical books comforting. Each one is a statement, somebody somewhere saying “I was here. I made this.” Books are human. By almost any measure they are less convenient, take up more room, and weigh more than digital versions. They require shelves. They collect dust and boring insects. It’s not difficult to take one […]
Dante is a witness, who sees and feels on behalf of the reader Karl Ove Knausgaard, “At the Bottom of the Universe,” 152
I find the world unknowable and therefore fascinating, unfamiliar and therefore irresistible. I long for that space where life seems uncertain, where I have to revise or reject the comfortable assumptions and convictions that have structured my life. I used to frequent a local coffee shop where I often saw a particular woman. Whenever she […]
The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others — who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, is something people with courage can do without. J. Didion, “On Self-Respect”
The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who don’t share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. J. Didion, “On Keeping a Notebook”
Thumbing through a couple books recently — one a collection of photographs, one a book on improving your photographic skills – made something clear: Photographers commonly feel compelled to draw attention to their cameras and their camera settings, whether or not that information serves any purpose. I remain amused by photographers’ obsession with equipment; it […]
Style has become both a fetish and a marketing device. We read or, more likely in today’s podcast- and YouTube-dominated world, hear and see over and over again that we have to discover our style as if it’s some buried treasure or a form of therapeutic self-realization (the alternative formulation, “we have to find our […]