Being Realistic is Blowing my Mind!

I'm departing from my regular format (make art, write about it) because I haven't been painting as much as usual. I've been devoting more and more of my time to writing (thanks Bryan), and let me tell you: being realistic is blowing my mind!

Lately, I've been sitting at the window with my hound, the both of us striking a Lenin pose (looking far off into the Utopian proletariat future!) trying to come up with an interesting narrative to write about. That's me thinking about a narrative, not my hound (Henry). He's probably thinking about lizards or Socrates's essences...I don't know.

Henry and I do this for days. Meanwhile, I have been keeping a list of interesting (and real) people I may use for a narrative. Here it is:

Christine Chubbuck
Kaspar Hauser
Ota Benga
Gherasim Luca

The one thing I believe they have in common is that they all have lives that are completely unrealistic. The irony that was dealt to them, has been dealt in such copious amounts that it is hard to believe that it is real and/or a supernatural hand has not interfered. Check 'em out on Wikipedia.

Yesterday, I began writing about Ota Benga (I'll let you all see it when I'm done). I was at Barnes & Noble trying to figure out what his English sounded like (what does a Mbuti accent sound like?) when it struck me.

There is something else all four names on the list have in common: they all committed suicide. I don't know how I missed it. As I said in my last blog post, I'm not a nihilist...am I?

The Reality of a Working Class Whale

Poor proletariat whale! He's on his way to clock in and look pretty on the cover of my very first zine. Anyhow, I'm sure you can understand my absence from the blog considering I was writing for the zine. What is a zine, you ask? Simply, it is a blog you can clutch and press to your heart (or some may say its a blog for chumps).

Anyhow, as usual, my ideas form (or step out of the mist of my grey matter) while I'm working on a piece to express those very ideas. Is this a case of acting before I think (aka hoof in mouth disease) or do my ideas only exist after they're articulated? Sounds like a linguists wet dream (linguists have notoriously subtle fantasies).

The entire zine unintentionally focused on reality as its mediated for us by different things. Wow, vague, I know. I'm not looking for anything metaphysical - I'm not your suburban wiccan (no offense small town witches) . Its really rather boring, but I think thats the point of it all.

The boredom of the summer is erasing all of me. Arguably, (but let's not argue - you say potato, I say tomato) memory is a creative act. There is no film or harddrive in our head. Everytime we remember something we re-create the narrative as accurately (or really however we see fit) as possible (considering we group many unconnected incedents into a narrative in the first place makes memory dubious). Think about a lot of your memories - do you see yourself instead of see from yourself?

Anyhow, as everything we see, hear, feel, etc. is mediated by our mind, our life is in the perpetual past. Given, the spark travels pretty quick from eye/ear/fingers to our thinking machine, but it still takes time. Okay: our memories are creative and our "present" is really in the perpetual past. Oh man, I think I'm hyperventilating, I'll be right back...

I'm sure you drew all sorts of weird conclusions while I got my paper bag, but to get to the boring point of it all that I spoke of. If the present is really memory the first time its remembered and memory itself is a creative act what happens when its boring? I'll level with you here: my life is crazy boring. Honestly 90% of my day is habit: work, eat, sleep, type blog, blah, blah, and blah. If our mind were a TV, reality were a show, and memories were re-runs, would I care to watch any of it? Honestly: no.

I'm not getting all nihilistic on you here (trust me: number one descriptor of yours truly: spunky). I just think I'm starting to understand Marcel Proust's point when he says that habit is what kills us.