Coloured Glass

had enough of silly lovesongs?

I was going to do another "Masterworks of modern poetry". On this song, if you must know. What an utterly craptastic thing of blandness.
But then for some reason I remembered this very touching essay by Proust, In Praise of Bad Music. Probably won't stop me from harping on bad music for very long, but it did give me pause.

And I think there's a very basic point about creative value in there; that we shouldn't be quick to dismiss emotive power in the name of good taste.

I really think it's worth reading in its entirety, so for the francophonically challenged, my translation here:

The long tie

So, here's a dirty secret: I'm not getting the whole Seth Godin thing. I ask this without a hint of irony or sarcasm: what's the big deal? how's he remarkable? I've read about the purple cow, and the fez, and the sneezing, and I sat through all 20 minutes of this disjointed, seemingly unprepared presentation on Google Video. The thing is, I haven't been surprised once. Not a single sentence that made me go, hm, I never thought of that.

Ok, not true. Bit surprised about the incredibly long tie. Not sure I've ever seen a tie this long before. Just imagine how lush a knot one could tie with that much fabric.

So, honest question - have any of you found it helpful? Thoughtprovoking? (the body of work, not the tie). What am I missing?

no, yo're rigt, i can't spott my ovn mistakkes

Why is it that people seem to think that there's some force of nature that makes you blind to your own mistakes when writing?

Editing, that I get. That's got nothing to do with who wrote it, however, it's just a matter of detachment. I'm just as vicious an editor with stuff I wrote at age 16 as with other people's stuff. Since, essentially, "me at age 16" is 'other people'. Of my recent writings, I'm not the best judge. See, I'm reasonable, I'll go this far.

Proofreading however... Grrr. "You can't proofread your own text", people keep saying. Who taught people this nonsense? and why? It's just ridiculous. I know it's supposedly based on the idea that you're reading ahead, since you already know what's there. Or what's supposed to be. But that's what all reading is like. At least if you're a good reader. We constantly make assumptions about what lies ahead when reading, and we're usually all over the place while we're doing it... looking at one word, mumbling another, thinking about a third. Except when proofreading. It's. just. a. skill.

You can learn it. There's nothing magical about it. There are techniques. I promise you, when you proofread backwards, you won't jump ahead because you wrote it yourself. And, proofing your own text has the advantage of being quite boring, so you won't get too immersed.

It's really like saying that you can't drive a car in your childhood area, since you know it so well that you wouldn't spot a hole in the road if there was one. That's just ridiculous. Maybe if you weren't paying attention, but that's the whole point of proofreading, isn't it? Reading while paying attention to holes in the road.

Reading your own stuff doesn't magically give you ADD. If it does, you really should stop writing, don't you think?

the hermetic fallacy

yeah, I didn't know it was out there either. But apparently it's taught at the Danish Authors' School ("Forfatterskolen"). The class of 06 is being profiled in a series of interviews in Berlingske Tidende; today it's Karin Toft, who may or may not be an excellent writer. I hope she is, since it seems to be a painful affair. "Writing has started to hurt", she exclaims, and her tired smile looks appropriately pale and world-weary. Poor thing.
Anyway, the point of the interview is that "the hermetic form is the most democratic, as it puts everyone on the same level." In other words, if you don't quote the classics, you're not leaving the slow kids behind.
Well... except not. Let's consider a bit of hermetic poetry, shall we? Nothing really exotic, just something like e.e.cummings' if i love You.

if i love You

if i love You
(thickness means
worlds inhabited by roamingly
stern bright faeries

if you love
me) distance is mind carefully
luminous with innumerable gnomes
Of complete dream

if we love each (shyly)
other, what clouds do or Silently
Flowers resembles beauty
less than our breathing

Does anyone really think that all readers are created equal when meeting a text such as this one? Our mind's ability to wrestle with paradoxical and enigmatic expressions is a skill aquired through practice, effort, reading tons of texts. It's just... mindboggingly arrogant to claim differently. Or ignorant, at least. And I don't really know if it's sad or inspiring that someone can be taught this exact skill for two years and come away thinking that as long as you don't reference, say, historic events that your slow-witted readers wouldn't know, you're really writing for the masses. Oh, well.