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green_dreamsOut of here in less than 24 hours. For a wonder, Marcon is about the furthest thing from my mind. (I did the pre-reg. Were they supposed to send me anything that confirmed that? I think not.)
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falseidoru writes some beautiful stuff. Read her latest.
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It's not that I mind people reading this. If I did, I'd lock all the posts, or keep a diary for myself. But I find myself curtailing myself because it so often seems like a bulletin board that people are meant to come by and read, a lazy shorthand for day-to-day contact. Fuck *meant*. This isn't that. This wasn't that, and I'm annoyed that I've let it slide so far into things that happen to me rather than things I care about.
In March, I found out someone ended up under a train in the London Underground, about seven minutes after it happened. A good chunk of the world away, no idea who they are or were, but I knew they died. That meant something--not because I knew them, but because it's a common concept, and it got through my defenses when I wasn't expecting it. That's what an icon is; that's what fiction does. Rather, that's how fiction *means*: gets in, makes contact, evokes reaction. From whoever was in the Underground, there's a weird cross-connect--death means something, matters when it slips in unexpected like that, but there's nothing else to them. I don't even have a name. It's a union of intimacy and irrelevance.
?Oscar Wilde? said art was at once all symbol and all substance. This is changing the substance into the symbol, because I have no other way to reach it. There's nothing to make it substance.
This is what's happening to Zed. It's what must happen; symbol and substance conflict, and to become the symbol, she must relinquish her substance. No other way.
It's hard enough writing from another person's perspective, how the hell do you write from an *idea's*? Barker's done it briefly with "The Forbidden", and Dick's come close to addressing it with some of his identity stuff. Moore's /Swamp Thing/ probably wouldn't hurt to look at either. And the last Wilhemina Baird book with Cassandra Blake, that had some--no. Dammit. Slipping into communication problems. Not so much how to represent the alien thought--that can and will be done, content can shape form--but how to think it.
It's about loss. Zed loses her self. Morgan's lost his freedom. Whisk looses her sight, Danny and Angela lose themselves to make way for Mason and Thames, Kelly looses her innocence and her protector, Brice--hah. Brice doesn't loose anything, actually. Loss is a poor word, it implies casualness or accident along with its other meanings. Morgan's closer to self-immolation, Whisk acts out of fear, Danny and Angela die by being either eaten or raped depending on the metaphor you want to use. None of them have made a deliberate choice. Neither does Kelly. Only Zed.
Not loss. Abstraction, in the sense of "to take away from"? The removal of qualities from the set that makes up the definition of self? Closer.
Can't write a story about a mathematical procedure.
The greatest act in the story is the act of deliberately abstracting yourself. Not the most morally valid or respectable act. Not inherently the most noble. But the most profound change, to understand yourself and then piece yourself into something new. Discard some bits, turn others around, rehaul your integrity like a tesseract toy. Superficially suicide, fundamentally transcendent.
That part I can't write beyond. But she needs to *understand* it, or she's only Morgan--someone rewriting herself in flailing panic. I'm writing about this and I'm coming to see *that* as why he failed, the fundamental flaw--apparently I'm going heavy on the Boethius, the idea that turning away from good is its own punishment, that perversity of free will leads you to use it for evil, that understanding leads to good...
A fundamental faith that the universe is good, that true understanding cannot help but lead to that. Do I believe that? Can I write it (can I write it well if I do believe it, will it serve the story better if I don't)?
Things to think about.
Glad I'm still interested.
========
For tomorrow (now today): find and collect all paperwork. Pack. Buy last-minute supplies. Friday's strip. /Quite/ pages. Uploads. US cash.
========
falseidoru writes some beautiful stuff. Read her latest.========
It's not that I mind people reading this. If I did, I'd lock all the posts, or keep a diary for myself. But I find myself curtailing myself because it so often seems like a bulletin board that people are meant to come by and read, a lazy shorthand for day-to-day contact. Fuck *meant*. This isn't that. This wasn't that, and I'm annoyed that I've let it slide so far into things that happen to me rather than things I care about.
In March, I found out someone ended up under a train in the London Underground, about seven minutes after it happened. A good chunk of the world away, no idea who they are or were, but I knew they died. That meant something--not because I knew them, but because it's a common concept, and it got through my defenses when I wasn't expecting it. That's what an icon is; that's what fiction does. Rather, that's how fiction *means*: gets in, makes contact, evokes reaction. From whoever was in the Underground, there's a weird cross-connect--death means something, matters when it slips in unexpected like that, but there's nothing else to them. I don't even have a name. It's a union of intimacy and irrelevance.
?Oscar Wilde? said art was at once all symbol and all substance. This is changing the substance into the symbol, because I have no other way to reach it. There's nothing to make it substance.
This is what's happening to Zed. It's what must happen; symbol and substance conflict, and to become the symbol, she must relinquish her substance. No other way.
It's hard enough writing from another person's perspective, how the hell do you write from an *idea's*? Barker's done it briefly with "The Forbidden", and Dick's come close to addressing it with some of his identity stuff. Moore's /Swamp Thing/ probably wouldn't hurt to look at either. And the last Wilhemina Baird book with Cassandra Blake, that had some--no. Dammit. Slipping into communication problems. Not so much how to represent the alien thought--that can and will be done, content can shape form--but how to think it.
It's about loss. Zed loses her self. Morgan's lost his freedom. Whisk looses her sight, Danny and Angela lose themselves to make way for Mason and Thames, Kelly looses her innocence and her protector, Brice--hah. Brice doesn't loose anything, actually. Loss is a poor word, it implies casualness or accident along with its other meanings. Morgan's closer to self-immolation, Whisk acts out of fear, Danny and Angela die by being either eaten or raped depending on the metaphor you want to use. None of them have made a deliberate choice. Neither does Kelly. Only Zed.
Not loss. Abstraction, in the sense of "to take away from"? The removal of qualities from the set that makes up the definition of self? Closer.
Can't write a story about a mathematical procedure.
The greatest act in the story is the act of deliberately abstracting yourself. Not the most morally valid or respectable act. Not inherently the most noble. But the most profound change, to understand yourself and then piece yourself into something new. Discard some bits, turn others around, rehaul your integrity like a tesseract toy. Superficially suicide, fundamentally transcendent.
That part I can't write beyond. But she needs to *understand* it, or she's only Morgan--someone rewriting herself in flailing panic. I'm writing about this and I'm coming to see *that* as why he failed, the fundamental flaw--apparently I'm going heavy on the Boethius, the idea that turning away from good is its own punishment, that perversity of free will leads you to use it for evil, that understanding leads to good...
A fundamental faith that the universe is good, that true understanding cannot help but lead to that. Do I believe that? Can I write it (can I write it well if I do believe it, will it serve the story better if I don't)?
Things to think about.
Glad I'm still interested.
========
For tomorrow (now today): find and collect all paperwork. Pack. Buy last-minute supplies. Friday's strip. /Quite/ pages. Uploads. US cash.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-26 01:47 pm (UTC)Rise up high;
How do they rise up,
Rise up high?
They rise knees up, knees up, knees up!
They rise knees up,
Knees up high.