No. 22 - The Blog.
The blog.
I’ve always been reluctant to start one for various reasons but I’m sure many other blogs have started with such a post and it won’t make for particularly enticing reading I’ll save it for a later date.
For now I’ll just introduce myself: I am Chris and I warmly greet all who read my blog. I finally took the pluge to making one because honestly it seems a natural progression for me as I’m forever scribbling some idea, short story, drawing, comic strip or crude scribble down... not because I’ve always got something to say but because it seems if I stop then the well dries up and when I do have something relevant on my mind I can’t get it down on paper. Even as I admit it I can’t deny it’s uneasily akin to Ford Prefect’s theory that humans never cease to talk because they believe if they do their brain will seize up. Ever the Guide fan my wonderful partner eventually cajoled me in to creating my own which she insists will serve as an outlet for me but with this in mind I can’t help but wonder if she had ulterior motives.
I shall be filling my blog with occasional bursts of creativity, short stories, nonsense I’ve made either recently or a long time ago for nostalgia’s sake, and and as this is the introductory post I should really kick it off by explaining who I am:
As an English literature student I’m constantly being confronted with with authors, critics and the louder historical figures on the roles and purposes of literature. Talk of ‘the canon’, (which I can never write without thinking of some wonderful device that you load with ink and blast at a page to produce profound, lasting pieces of prose.) genre, the very definition of poetry, a prose or a historical text can all be rather messy and self-indulgent. Essentially most writers are full of it. We’ve spent four weeks this year looking at what writers thought of themselves, enduring Wordsworth’s crawling definition of a poet as some sort of divine translator. It’s unlikely you’ve ever read the preface to literary ballads and there’s a good reason behind that too. Anyways, In this text he makes the astounding claim that reading poetry written in careful reflection allows you to experience the truth and intensity of witnessing the events first hand. The moment I heard this I was dying to spend a few hours trawling through the layers of crude erotica on Deviant Art.
You see what we didn’t realise is that poets are morally upstanding leaders of our species, divinely appointed by the heavens. If this is true they’ve really been phoning it in sometimes. I was however completely stripped of my negativity and doubts by the words of morally upstanding, divinely appointed poet, minister of the church and adulterous opium fiend Coleridge. Sorry Samuel, I’ve read your work but until you’ve danced in the dirt at an Iron Maiden concert you’ve not enjoyed The Rime of the Ancient Mariner at its most entertaining.
Aside from a general feeling of sticky revulsion as the body of the literary canon, overly self-stimulated fires its load in my face is the fact so many writers seem to be forever attempting to find empirical or philosophical definition of who they are and on what and how they produce. It seems to completely destroys the purpose and idea of creativity, not to mention the fun, and it is in this spirit I present the following assortment of words.*
Disruption
Tvestan sat idle at his desk; it had been twenty one unproductive days since he last wrote a word and the smoggy Parisian skyline had done nothing to help. He chewed listlessly on the end of his pen formulating his ideas; he had tried many a time to stimulate his thoughts, even contemplating hallucinogenic drugs at one stage before quickly rejecting the idea. It was strange to him, he thought, that after so many years of writing he suddenly had no idea where to start. Deciding he was getting nowhere fast he reached for the steaming Harvard mug he had lifted from the Dean’s desk as a souvenir, craning it up and leaning over it carefully, sipping gently to test the temperature. As his tongue touched the brown liquid he spat, head tilting back in shock to get away from the scalding liquid causing his glasses to slip forward from his ears and tumble down, its delicate metal arms flailing around in distress as it hit the floor. He scooped them off of the floor hastily and held them aloft like an experienced jeweller, examining them unhappily. He slipped them on only to have his frown deepen: they would no longer balance on his nose and instantly returned to the floor. The idea of yet another distraction, the blank page and not to mention the burning coffee left him with a bad taste in his mouth.
Taking the glasses delicately between his fingers he stood, kicking back his old writing chair and walked solemnly towards the door on his way to getting his glasses replaced, or he would have if someone hadn’t burst through the door at that moment and shot him through the head.**
*I love you, Homestar.
** Let it also be known I hold nothing against the subject personally, nor am I suggesting he has stolen anything or taken narcotics it just seemed like a fun way to illustrate a point.
Now! I realise this is quite a long blog entry, (most will be a fair bit shorter) so in the interests of communication I will be translating each journal entry in a means of my own choosing. Today, I will be translating this entry in to the internationally recognised medium of Cat Macro.
iz it can be blog tiem yet plz?
oh hai internets!
Coleridge cat is the prettiest thing
i am in ur books absorbin ur literacha
orly?
I’ve always been reluctant to start one for various reasons but I’m sure many other blogs have started with such a post and it won’t make for particularly enticing reading I’ll save it for a later date.
For now I’ll just introduce myself: I am Chris and I warmly greet all who read my blog. I finally took the pluge to making one because honestly it seems a natural progression for me as I’m forever scribbling some idea, short story, drawing, comic strip or crude scribble down... not because I’ve always got something to say but because it seems if I stop then the well dries up and when I do have something relevant on my mind I can’t get it down on paper. Even as I admit it I can’t deny it’s uneasily akin to Ford Prefect’s theory that humans never cease to talk because they believe if they do their brain will seize up. Ever the Guide fan my wonderful partner eventually cajoled me in to creating my own which she insists will serve as an outlet for me but with this in mind I can’t help but wonder if she had ulterior motives.
I shall be filling my blog with occasional bursts of creativity, short stories, nonsense I’ve made either recently or a long time ago for nostalgia’s sake, and and as this is the introductory post I should really kick it off by explaining who I am:
As an English literature student I’m constantly being confronted with with authors, critics and the louder historical figures on the roles and purposes of literature. Talk of ‘the canon’, (which I can never write without thinking of some wonderful device that you load with ink and blast at a page to produce profound, lasting pieces of prose.) genre, the very definition of poetry, a prose or a historical text can all be rather messy and self-indulgent. Essentially most writers are full of it. We’ve spent four weeks this year looking at what writers thought of themselves, enduring Wordsworth’s crawling definition of a poet as some sort of divine translator. It’s unlikely you’ve ever read the preface to literary ballads and there’s a good reason behind that too. Anyways, In this text he makes the astounding claim that reading poetry written in careful reflection allows you to experience the truth and intensity of witnessing the events first hand. The moment I heard this I was dying to spend a few hours trawling through the layers of crude erotica on Deviant Art.
You see what we didn’t realise is that poets are morally upstanding leaders of our species, divinely appointed by the heavens. If this is true they’ve really been phoning it in sometimes. I was however completely stripped of my negativity and doubts by the words of morally upstanding, divinely appointed poet, minister of the church and adulterous opium fiend Coleridge. Sorry Samuel, I’ve read your work but until you’ve danced in the dirt at an Iron Maiden concert you’ve not enjoyed The Rime of the Ancient Mariner at its most entertaining.
Aside from a general feeling of sticky revulsion as the body of the literary canon, overly self-stimulated fires its load in my face is the fact so many writers seem to be forever attempting to find empirical or philosophical definition of who they are and on what and how they produce. It seems to completely destroys the purpose and idea of creativity, not to mention the fun, and it is in this spirit I present the following assortment of words.*
Disruption
Tvestan sat idle at his desk; it had been twenty one unproductive days since he last wrote a word and the smoggy Parisian skyline had done nothing to help. He chewed listlessly on the end of his pen formulating his ideas; he had tried many a time to stimulate his thoughts, even contemplating hallucinogenic drugs at one stage before quickly rejecting the idea. It was strange to him, he thought, that after so many years of writing he suddenly had no idea where to start. Deciding he was getting nowhere fast he reached for the steaming Harvard mug he had lifted from the Dean’s desk as a souvenir, craning it up and leaning over it carefully, sipping gently to test the temperature. As his tongue touched the brown liquid he spat, head tilting back in shock to get away from the scalding liquid causing his glasses to slip forward from his ears and tumble down, its delicate metal arms flailing around in distress as it hit the floor. He scooped them off of the floor hastily and held them aloft like an experienced jeweller, examining them unhappily. He slipped them on only to have his frown deepen: they would no longer balance on his nose and instantly returned to the floor. The idea of yet another distraction, the blank page and not to mention the burning coffee left him with a bad taste in his mouth.
Taking the glasses delicately between his fingers he stood, kicking back his old writing chair and walked solemnly towards the door on his way to getting his glasses replaced, or he would have if someone hadn’t burst through the door at that moment and shot him through the head.**
*I love you, Homestar.
** Let it also be known I hold nothing against the subject personally, nor am I suggesting he has stolen anything or taken narcotics it just seemed like a fun way to illustrate a point.
Now! I realise this is quite a long blog entry, (most will be a fair bit shorter) so in the interests of communication I will be translating each journal entry in a means of my own choosing. Today, I will be translating this entry in to the internationally recognised medium of Cat Macro.
iz it can be blog tiem yet plz?
oh hai internets!
Coleridge cat is the prettiest thing
i am in ur books absorbin ur literacha
orly?