I'm not really sure why the bridge is lit tonight, but it looks great! When I read through my old journals, I'm struck less by a sense of frustration, which is more or less constant, than an expectation that things will eventually get better, that with enough work and inspiration, the kinds of hassles that define so much of life on a daily basis will be burned away by bigger and more important events and acts of creation (if not procreation, lol).
Here's a very recent example of frustration: Stephen bought a thermos to microwave soup at his office, and the microwave is so tiny that the thermos won't fit. Or maybe everything is compounded by the fact that we have been trying to refinance our house since May, and even after turning over every single one of the hundreds of thousands of documents related to our (quite solid!) credit history and to every financial transaction for more than 10 cents dating back to the year 1843, we are receiving still more requests from the nebulous and all-powerful 'underwriter' (via a mortgage broker) for information related to third parties that existed only in our imagination. Such is the state of banking and finance today, at least on a consumer level.
Sometimes it's possible to get closer and closer and closer to something, only to realize at the second you're about to reach it, that it wasn't worth the pain of getting there at all. What if life isn't about 'the journey' at all, but the result? [In this post, 'soup' is a metaphor for _____.]
Take this however you want to, though I only mean it sincerely as someone who likes your writing. I've wanted to "write a comment" like this for a while, but something reading the recent posts of your (completely amazing) old Paris journals has made me more sure of is that I wish you would stop doing posts or making remarks in your version of the HRO voice, srsly (not that this post is an example of that, I'm just speaking generally). I think Carles is great, too, but I feel like it's just not "authentic" for you to write like that, rlly, since the "sincere person" expressed in the best of your writing is not like the person who uses that voice (not that "Carles" isn't "sincere" in his own way, but it's different than your way, I think). You're so prolific with the GWBP and everything and maybe the only way for you to be able to be so prolific is occasionally to lapse from your own style into a version of that voice, because it's easy or fun or fast for you to write that way and to make a post, but I just feel like it kind of spoils things, at least for me as a reader and possibly for "posterity" and/or "literary blog history." I feel like to do that kind of ventriloquism, while you certainly do it well, is for poseurs and copycats (I think DFW said "something" about this, RIP, y'all), whereas you already have developed a really great individual style as seen in this post and many others (this reference I am making is to the _________ of your writing) and I feel like, you know, just keep writing that way and not the other way! But maybe that is too hard to do such a thing every day, which is something I can accept and personally understand. Just trying to express myself, y'all.
Posted by: sabaf | 09/18/2009 at 10:42 AM
I understand what you're saying Sabaf, although I think if you go back and
look at the blog-writing over the past few months, I would argue that I've
actually moved away from aping the more simplistic Carles-isms, which was
'fun' and expedient for a while (via the challenges of posting every day, as
you point out), but has now morphed into something different and maybe more
'authentic' (if not always earnest, which gets tedious after a while, I
think, although I know it's my strongest suit.) I refer you specifically to
the Time Fades Away features in Washington Heights and my ruminations on
Southampton (i.e., when I can, I like to put more effort into creating
something 'epic' and lyrical but it's impossible to do this all the time.)
See also my 'In the Weeds' columns on the Awl, which are more carefully
crafted. There were obv certain 'ironic' elements of my writing, such as
Posted by: Matthew Gallaway | 09/18/2009 at 11:23 AM
No, and I had kind of noticed this shift and so maybe I should've made the comment back then or not at all. Your writing is good and I really like it -- if I didn't emphasize that enough, sorry.
Posted by: sabaf | 09/18/2009 at 12:29 PM
No need to apologize, sabaf (and thanks again for reading).
On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 12:29 PM, wrote:
Posted by: Matthew Gallaway | 09/18/2009 at 01:29 PM