Questions And All That Cal

So I got to meet and interview Winterson a little over three months ago. She reiterated something she wrote about in Art Objects, the idea that a novel should adhere to the 19th century tradition of omniscient narrator and linear story lines is dead, killed off by the advent of moving pictures and television. She compared it to photography freeing up painting so that artists were no longer obliged to create realism in their work. The same should work for literature, or so she says. If movies and TV are so good at straight forward storytelling, and able to do it with so much more engagement in less time (it takes a few sentences to describe someone walking down the street and into a building while this mundane action can be expressed in a few seconds of screen time) then why not allow fiction to flow into different territories? Modernism embraced this and it is to that school of thought that she has molded herself as a writer. I’m with her. I like a good story as much as the next guy, but why be slavishly bound to that approach? Think of Calvino, Borges, Alfau or any of that crew of inventive writers whose work charted new, exciting ground.

Rereading anything I have written suddenly makes me depressed. I offer nothing new or interesting, only recycled ideas and none of them very fresh to begin with. I am starting to think I am a better reader than writer, which I (and everyone) always knew anyway, but still…

It makes me wonder what the point is of continuing this blog. I could use it as an outlet for my boredom and frustration, or I could use it as a place to post half-assed writings (such as this). I could post pictures, if I knew how. I could tell the 4 people who come here about my day or some annoying thing that happened. My brother is better at this in his blog. His rants are always fun to read, more so than mine. And besides, who gives a rat’s ass about what I or anyone on the internet thinks?

On the internet, everyone will be famous for fifteen people.

Is there unlimited space on the internet? Is there room for all of these blogs? Do they eat up too much territory and if so, should we limit the number? Is this arena so vast? The universe is expanding, but does the internet work in a similar fashion? I wonder.

Perhaps this blog constitutes a frivolous boutique that could have been an outpatient clinic or 24-hour suicide prevention center. Maybe I ought to shut it down. Anyone want to give me a compelling reason not to?

Never mind, don’t. I am not fishing for compliments and I really don’t need the validation. I’m just wondering what purpose these things serve aside from the ego stroking, which is nice, of course. What can I do to make mine more interesting anyway?

Never mind. I’m not in the mood to debate the anonymous folk who will post rude comments. Fuck you ahead of time.