1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy. 2. Submissive to everything, open, listening. 5. Something that you feel will find its own form. --Jack Kerouac, from "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose"
Or is that koan-ish too? I think Kerouac seems like the blogging type. Graphomania.
Anyway, RLC has started to opine on current affairs too, so that's definitely a veer away from the zen. Today, he's got a little spoof of death-obsessed news media.
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3 comments:
I changed those quotes a couple of months ago and you're the first reader who's noticed, I believe.
Kerouac's "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose" is a list of 30 "Essentials" that he published in 1959, though as with much of his work there are variant versions from different times. In my opinion it's the best thing he ever wrote. I like to go down the list and see where I am on any given day. Today I might be at #10,"No time for poetry but exactly what is."
Unfortunately Kerouac himself did not heed #3, “Try never get drunk outside yr own house.”
As for why I post more topical stuff now and less artsy/spiritual stuff: wisdom is hard to come by.
That #3 advice could be pretty bad though -- isn't "drinking alone" a warning sign? At least, getting drunk alone...
I think people don't notice your new quote very much because it's hard to see blue on blue. (Irrelevant side note: Bobby Vinton recorded a song called "Blue on Blue," trying to follow up "Blue Velvet.")
On that last point, there's plenty of artsy/spiritual things that aren't too wise, but I guess that's the problem. With topical things, you can often just say, essentially, look, that happened, and if you add a dollop of anything on top of that, it can seem like a nice post. With spirituality, people's crap-o-meters are going to go off if you try to pull that kind of thing.
I agree that creative/spritual work is much harder to come by, often resulting in a silenced blog. I know that I find myself checking here, Ms. Althouse, at your site...oh...a couple of times a day because I know you'll have noticed something I did, or something curious, or something funny, and you'll be posting about it shortly. Whereas, my favorite creative sites I don't check nearly as often.
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