Wednesday, October 29, 2003
What did I say yesterday, about wanting to do everything, and all at once? Strike that. Reverse it. And that's how I feel this morning. Sick of writing. Sick of even thinking about writing. Sick of being sick of writing and thinking about writing. I'm pretty certain that I'm even sick of knowing that I'm sick of being sick of writing and thinking about writing. Sick of issues of publicity and sales and demographics and the whole bloody mess. And doubly sick of knowing it's not something I can walk away from. That's the most sickening part of the whole sickening affair. Here I stay, forever and ever, until I croak and they stick my sad, used-up carcass in the ground, world without end, you get the picture. And the worst part is that the writing has its hooks, its claws, it ugly black talons, sunk deep in all those other things I might still want to do. Without the writing there is nothing, no opportunity, and with the writing there is inevitably this.
It'll pass. Sooner or later. Today I am farthest from whatever personal and dying sun I orbit. Physics dictates I can't stay out here forever. I lack what it takes to escape my own orbital pathway.
If I could lay my hands on my thoughts, or open my mouth and simply let them pour from my lips. If I could render them pure, rather than having to filter it all through this utterly insufficient tool of language. Then maybe you could see what I see, or hear what I hear, or know what I think I know. There would not even be communication, as we tend to think of it. There would only be creation. A dirtectness and purity of art that most art lacks, and which literature never, ever approaches. I am so tired of pushing words against words, in the faint hope that someone will see exactly what I need them to see. Not some rough approximation which she or he is then free to misunderstand. All I have is words, for this task of releasing the worlds trapped inside my head, the worlds my head seems helpless to stop spawning. No, no, no. That's not even the truth. I think that's only something that I'd like to be the truth. I will never be the writer I need to be, and neither will any other writer. No one can bridge the psychoperceptual gap between minds with mere fucking words.
Today, with all my heart, and all my mind, I know this to be true.
We'll see about tomorrow. It's an inconvenient place to be, this "mood," with a new book "hitting the shelves."
The cryosphere in spraying prominances all around me, and here it's only the end of October.
Yesterday, I wrote 913 words on "Mercury," which might not seem like much to you, but you didn't have to write them. I may sit it out today. We'll see. We always do.
Last night, Spooky and I had passes to an advance screening of Alien: The Directors Cut. The experience must be divided into two categories. On the one hand — the left — this is a absolutely beautiful extension of the original cut. It slows the film down just a little, allowing the events to unfold at a less clipped pace, and providing more "space" for dread and anticipation. The new version creates an even starker, lonelier view of the Nostromo and LV4 and the derelict alien starship. If you love this film as much as I do, it's a must see on the big screen and a must-own when it reaches DVD. On the other hand — the right — we were shoved into a little theatre with a curved screen. That much I expected. What I hadn't expected was an audience that would laugh through the first three-quarters of the film. Where are these fucking morons coming from? Exactly what about Kane being attacked by the face hugger, or Dallas' encounter with the adult alien in the air shafts, or the discovery that Ash is an android, what out of all that is fit to provoke gails of snickering laughter? I literally had to stop myself from standing up and screaming at these people to shut the hell up. What were they seeing up there? Or is it that we've (a "we" exclusive of Me) become something that can't get past Jason vs. Freddy and Scary Movie 3 to actually allow ourselves to experience the horror and terror and awe and beauty of a film like Alien? It's been some time since I've been subjected to an audience intent on inappropriate laughter. I thought maybe that was passé. It's as if there are a lot of people who can only face the world in terms of something that is there to amuse or entertain them, so everything becomes comedy (in the modern sense), whether it's meant as such or not. My only other complaint, and my only complaint about the Director's Cut itself, is that so little of the cocooning scene was actually restored. I've seen the scene as it was originally shot and it's far more effective than the quick bit we get in this cut. There's very powerful dialogue between Dallas and Ripley, as he begs her to kill him, that would have added much. Sadly, it's not here. Regardless, see this. Try to ignore the inappropriate, sociopathic laughter and see this.
Is that enough for today? Can I please go now?
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