CultureHack

Writer Redux

Too cynical to live, too dumb to die,
I'm still standing: Consider being afraid . . .

I've had it with these
motherfucking snakes
on this motherfucking plane!
--Samuel L Jackson, Snakes On a Plane

The sun shines high above
The sounds of laughter
The birds swoop down upon
The crosses of old grey churches
We say that we're in love
While secretly wishing for rain
Sipping coke and playing games
September's here again
September's here again . . .
--David Sylvian, "September"

Okay, it wasn't exactly serpents and the aircraft was metaphoric, but--yes--I, too, thoroughly (and motherfuckingly) had had it. For a while, at least. But now I'm back kicking ass and taking names. I guess everybody needs a hobby. Let's just say I was on a Business Trip and leave it at that. For the more melodramatically inclined among you, it turned out that only Moriarty plummeted into Reichenbach Falls--after which, I spent a long time in Tibet. Which pretty much brings us to this, The Return . . . Special thanks to what scholars of Elizabethan literature call "diverse hands"--they kept this place dusted and tidied while I was Elsewhere doing Other, Unfortunately Unavoidable Things.

It also should be noted that I lost a good friend along the way, demonstrating the extreme and unpredictable nature of this very peculiar trip. But if I have any advantage over Tony Dresden, it is the ability to say That was then and this is now. So onward . . .

At the top, let's be clear about this entry--given the amount of catching up that needs to be done, it is, by necessity, the Jagged Jump-Cut Edition of a post. So put aside any expectation of elegant thematic arcs--this is a reorganization meeting. Nothing more. Nothing less. I hope you brought a legal pad.

Sad Songs Say So Much

A song for Beatrice and one for me:
Update on the ongoing music project . . .

Turn them on, turn them on
Turn on those sad songs
When all hope is gone
Why don't you tune in and turn them on

They reach into your room
Just feel their gentle touch
When all hope is gone
Sad songs say so much
--Elton John & Bernie Taupin, "Sad Songs"

For those of you who have asked about the status of the latest songwriting reunion between Bazz and I, it's going--touch wood-- fabulously. Once again proving that it really is darkest before dawn. A couple of months ago, I was ready to leave my pop-music pen in its inkwell for good. Who knew? Certainly not me.

Artistically, this collection of songs is the nexus of a complex series of projects: The Formal Absence of Precious Things, a CD designed to be its own listening experience; Formal Absence, a novel about the fluidity of memory of a retired songwriter whose last set of songs was The Formal Absence of Precious Things; and Formal Absences, a theatre piece (containing some of the songs from The Formal Absences of Precious Things along with other songs) that tells a story different from either the song cycle or the novel.

As an artist, I am experimenting with the radical repurposing of my own work, imposing on it three different media and teasing-out three different messages.

Years ago, the Australian artist David Hockney photographed large objects like desert cacti with a handheld Polaroid camera, moving it slightly between shots until, say, 45 photos captured the scene. When Hockney then assembled the photos into a mosaic, a cubistic vision was revealed that often said more than an Ansel Adams silver print of the same subject. In a similar fashion, these three art projects are the equivalent of me circling around the a single set of themes, cubistically capturing them in ways that shatters the smooth surfaces of reality and fractures the stories we like to tell ourselves about our lives.