But this one, the one who wrote the four years of backstory isn't the one starring in the play anyhow. I won't play her myself, of course. She'll be taller, with larger breasts, and a perfectly clear conscience.
That’s the thing about writing, you so often lose control of your own narrative. The chasm between intent and interpretation grows wider with each reading. If you can see something a little sparkly it lies in the generosity of your interpretation. The only things I’ve written that have ever made money have been vocational training manuals and pornography. Does that make these things valuable? I doubt it. Does it imply we universally share an understanding of what these things mean? Not even. It’s all wide open to interpretation no matter how graphically and explicitly you try to define it.
Different is good, different is interesting…
This is true mostly in fiction. In reality when you laugh after denting someone’s car he is bound to become angry. No one understands you’re late for work because of how the light bends around the door in a way that can’t make sense to you. If all my communications were in writing perhaps I’d be more comfortable with the differences. Your recognition of them and acceptance is a kindness that approaches reality and brushes up against it nicely because I know you’re real and I am more confident now of that. But you can’t overestimate how distance and time do change things that are intolerable to live with on a daily basis into intriguing quirks when you look at them from far away.
But everyone thinks they’re different. It’s egotistical, isn’t it.
I’m not sure about the Brando label. I’m not sure what I meant by it either. Once I narrow it down it isn’t sticky enough to attach itself. I’m still sorting it out. Your lines, in my script, are in need of some work (you stubbornly refuse to freestyle), but your stage directions are perfect. You come off even better than Brando. But before making any attempts at production you’ll need a ruthless editor who can remove the particularly strange things as well as the mundane. And with that accomplished, is there enough material left? Maybe a short one act with no intermission.
*
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I certainly get the chasm thing and am confident that art no longer belongs to the artist once they share it, then I can do what I want with it. But this is not art, and I found it more than you wanted to share it. I guess that's why you can tell me to shut-up any time you want, you could even tell me to leave.
I'm more than willing to grant you that the sparkles I find are an act of generosity, although generosity is not really a quality I'm know for. But I think it's only fair you acknowledge the acuteness of my limited excellence and perhaps, just perhaps, there may in fact be something to my interpretation--Sparkles.
Allright so maybe it is only true in fiction, but fiction is one of the few places I can find any truths. And besides my whole life is a fiction. I sit around all day pretending to know what to do, how to do it and when to do it-and people believe me. Maybe that's the Brando thing, I'm so hung up on appearing like I know people think I know: I'm Brando in Apocalypse Now wandering around spouting Eliott like some artistic savant when what I really am is hight. Dammit, I'm Fat Brando! But I do know this, I actually want to know what it is that makes you laugh when you're not suppose to, what it is that made you late for work, because you're not a stock character.
From early on I've treated my life like a novel, and characters are either original and interesting or stock. If you're stock my interest is limited to what you can do for me and then I will manipulate setting, symbols and the plot to get what I need, and move on. But if you're original I wan to know you.
I work with stock characters all day. They're late to work because they are alcoholics, because they got arrested bumping coke with a hooker, because they are too lazy to care and like little kids just hope they don't get caught, or they're little to-do list is just so jam packed and they are such busy little beavers they lost track of time But I have neither the time nor the inclination to take any interest in any of them because I have met them all before-they are stock and insignificant. So perhaps I do romanticize originality and I'm pretty sure you're right that I could not deal with your shit on a daily basis-and maybe that's what I found spooky but unbelievably alluring in the first place. But you know what, I can't deal with anybody's shit on a daily basis. Somehow I find both the time and opportunity to loathe everybody and anybody with a consistency I can't muster in any other part of my character.
In my little fictional existence, under the layers, I know deep down I'm an asshole. And where you and I have a similarity, at least to me anyways, is I'm not really sure why people would like me, and I certainly distrust it. Part of the reason I think it took me so long to actually learn how to have adult relationships is because at first I was too stupid to read the symbols of affection, and then I felt anyone who actually was affectionate was clearly not very bright. I've gotten over that to some degree, but I'm still pretty confident people who pay me to sit around all day thinking about your posts are rubes.
So for the record, if I'm allowed to stay in this little production I reserve the right to remain complimentary. And if I want to dress it up in a little metaphor we will agree to debate the accuracy of the effect, but you are absolutely not allowed to demean fiction; it's the only thing I believe in. I also reserve the right to use Sparkles as I see fit.
Post a Comment