Terry Boot ([info]laufeys_son) wrote,
2005-08-31 00:28:00
When you've reached the point where seeing the abominations on the covers of the new romance novels is one of the serious high points of your days, you know it's something approaching a time to buy, rent, or otherwise aquire some form of life. Also, they're actually not as horrible this month as they are usually, and I refuse to admit how depressed that's making me.

I'm now back to pondering the nature of hoaxes again (Question: If you have gone out of your way to create the worst poetry in the universe, and you turn something out that is widely considered to have real literary merit, was that a success or a failure? This is actually not a purely rhetorical question, either.) and wondering what's been eaten in my abscence that I have yet to notice (also not purely rhetorical. I didn't notice that my left sock was now toeless until earlier this morning).

At this rate, I'm starting to consider it a victory just to get through a work day without throttling someone or dying of boredom in extremity and I think it's just the sneaking suspicion (again) that I'm getting too old that's keeping me from tossing the towel in on all of this. At the rate we're going, I probably won't have a job in 6 months, anyway, and we'll probably have to live somewhere all-wizard, which will make it a moot point anyway.

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  • 48 comments

[info]jmff

August 31 2005, 05:23:32 UTC 6 years ago

I told you I'm not living in a wizarding internment camp.

And I'll buy you some new socks tomorrow.

[info]laufeys_son

August 31 2005, 05:30:33 UTC 6 years ago

And I really don't want to, either, you know.

And it's not the socks that are really at issue, you know. I'm not hurting for socks, I'm just looking blissfully towards the days when I no longer have to worry if my possessions are fated to become chew toys.

[info]jmff

August 31 2005, 05:33:52 UTC 6 years ago

Well then we should remove all the additions to this place and stay here. I like it here.

He's getting better. He's almost outgrown that awkward phase and all.

[info]laufeys_son

August 31 2005, 05:45:53 UTC 6 years ago

Starting to look like the only thing left to do, I suppose. I'm not sure I like that much, either, however. And I'm probably never going to say this again, so note it: I feel really sorry for my mother and father right now.

And about how much longer do we get to experience the joys of the awkward phase before it becomes another happy little memory?

[info]jmff

August 31 2005, 05:48:48 UTC 6 years ago

At least you work in a Muggle bookshop. I'm not sure what Tubby's going to do. Get rid of the Apparition closet and make us do the washing up by hand I suppose...

Fuck, I'm going to have to find a new job.

Can't be too much longer, can it? Remember when I first brought him home and he ate your favourite pair of shoes? God he was so cute then. They grow up so fast...

[info]laufeys_son

August 31 2005, 05:51:46 UTC 6 years ago

If this place finally stops treading water at just the right moment, we can both be jobseeking at the same time. Now won't that be fun.

And I remember. Believe me, I remember. Are they always like...I don't know, fitful teenagers, or whatever?

[info]jmff

August 31 2005, 05:54:26 UTC 6 years ago

Oh, won't it be nice to sit around together all day, on the dole, watching Trisha in our underpants, and eating takeaway?

Look, he's getting better slowly. I am sure that very soon he'll discover that the toys I lavish upon him are far more interesting and delicious than anything you've ever used to cover parts of your body.

[info]laufeys_son

August 31 2005, 06:02:51 UTC 6 years ago

Are you asking my opinion of that complete set up?

Right. And then he'll probably, I don't know, discover how to break into the refridgerator or something. Mark my words, one day he'll eat us out of house and home, and then where will we be, hm?

[info]jmff

6 years ago

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[info]laufeys_son

6 years ago

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[info]jmff

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[info]laufeys_son

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[info]pottersfield

August 31 2005, 18:55:44 UTC 6 years ago

On the nature of hoaxes:

This is a tough one, because if everyone sees your poetry for what it is (a hoax), then you've not been very subtle about it at all, have you? But if it's treated as poetry with literary merit then you were likely too subtle, and it's just an inside joke between you and yourself.

But if everyone fell for it you might the get pleasure of revealing it as a hoax later, right?

[info]laufeys_son

August 31 2005, 21:32:04 UTC 6 years ago

See, and I can see that, but what I'm really wondering about is what it means to fail in a hoax, when the failure means making something good. If you've decided to prove that anyone can get into, say, poetry journal X, so you make up something horrid and get in, and then realise that, in retrospect, what you wrote was interesting (possibly even because you were trying to make it horrible and weren't overworking it or what-have-you) or other people say it's of literary merit, then was that a success or a failure?

I've actually read some poetry from people who were trying this sort of thing which was a lot better than some 'real' poetry...

[info]pottersfield

August 31 2005, 23:03:56 UTC 6 years ago

I reckon in that case it's a failure as a hoax, but a success as a poem?

I don't really know much about poetry, I guess. Oh, except I know enough to know it doesn't have to rhyme to be good. Hermione told me

[info]laufeys_son

August 31 2005, 23:28:51 UTC 6 years ago

Or maybe a failure in intention and a success in art, or something of the sort. But that gets too close to the old 'what is art?' question, I think.

[info]pottersfield

August 31 2005, 23:32:40 UTC 6 years ago

Art is whatever you can get away with.

At least that's what the epipath on this comic I once read said. I remember it because I liked it.

[info]laufeys_son

August 31 2005, 23:38:07 UTC 6 years ago

'Epipath'. I like that. Sounds like a literary madman or something.

But I think the statement works. Art is whatever you can scam someone else into calling art, I suppose. Even better if you can get them to call it 'art' as they're cutting you a cheque or two.

[info]pottersfield

August 31 2005, 23:45:37 UTC 6 years ago

Hermione and I went to a gallery once and there was a giant ashtray filled with a whole lorry load of fag ends. The whole room smelled very strongly of old ashes. It was pretty ugly, but we spent quite a long time looking at it. Probably because Hermione thought it would inspire me to quit.

Wasn't a toilet in a museum once? On display, I mean.

[info]laufeys_son

August 31 2005, 23:56:08 UTC 6 years ago

I'm not the universe's biggest fan of galleries in general, I must admit.

And it was a urinal, and that was Duchamp as part of the whole Dada movement. I think the underlying idea was supposed to be something like 'If this is in a museum, does it then become art in a way it isn't if it's in a pub?'

Or maybe just 'Hey, I'm Marcel Fucking Duchamp, look what I can do!'

[info]pottersfield

6 years ago

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[info]orestes_bride

September 1 2005, 00:43:06 UTC 6 years ago

Which only goes to show that art isn't much of a prescriptive.

[info]pottersfield

6 years ago

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[info]orestes_bride

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[info]pottersfield

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[info]jmff

6 years ago

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[info]orestes_bride

August 31 2005, 23:18:04 UTC 6 years ago

It's the polarities of success and failure that I don't get in this case. Why should they be end-points?

[info]laufeys_son

August 31 2005, 23:27:56 UTC 6 years ago

You mean, why can't something be a success and a failure at the same time, then? I'm not sure. Sometimes, I'm not even certain what the words are supposed to mean in any given context, which, I think, is where all this insanity came from for me right now.

[info]orestes_bride

September 1 2005, 00:16:10 UTC 6 years ago

Words are slippery in general; that's what gives us poetry and insanity both.

It's the notion of absolutes that I have trouble with, though. They seem to exist by design rather than nature. Something that looks to be an absolute failure now could well be a crucial success elsewhere. I know I'm talking in platitudes here but the question of how things shift according to context has been on my mind a lot lately.

[info]laufeys_son

September 1 2005, 00:21:51 UTC 6 years ago

Words are nothing but sad attempts to translate idea into spoken form. They're never going to be complete. They all have undertones and overtones and shadings of meaning hiding under their furry little skins and waiting to bite you.

And I've never liked the idea of absolutes, at all. There's nothing in the universe that is an absolute, really, in the way we imagine. I tend to think that the entire idea is merely a side effect of the way our brains evolved, a little like children being afraid of the dark.

And whether something's a failure or a success in retrospect, it's not going to be either in a billion years. 'I am Ozymandas...' and the sands stretch far away and all that rot.

[info]only_eloise

September 1 2005, 00:25:57 UTC 6 years ago

Words may be sad attempts to translate ideas but music isn't!

Musical adverts for Weird Warwick's Wand Warehouse not withstanding.

[info]laufeys_son

6 years ago

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[info]only_eloise

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[info]only_eloise

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[info]only_eloise

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[info]orestes_bride

September 1 2005, 01:41:27 UTC 6 years ago

Words can do a lot more than bite. Their potential for damage is stunning, to say the least.

As far as I can tell, the concept of an absolute follows from the fact of physical death: The world goes on, but you and your loved ones don't. The drive to get up in the morning and live has got to be tied to the resistance against dying.

I always liked the perversity of a poet with a death-wish giving life to a forgotten king.

[info]pottersfield

August 31 2005, 23:34:39 UTC 6 years ago

I don't think they should be end points, but they are. When you do something, everyone's always going to draw their conclusions about whether what you've done is a failure or a success, aren't they?

[info]orestes_bride

September 1 2005, 00:29:30 UTC 6 years ago

People can be very fickle, though, not to mention easily swayed. Relying on popular opinion as a measure of success is a tricky thing.
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