horse's neck
04.12.03 @ 7:05 p.m.
Always, always when I read good literature, decent literature, I'm possessed with the overwhelming urge to reform myself as a writer, to stop writing stupid, vacuous, meaningless but entertaining fluff and I almost want to court the tortured soul of the artist. To develop it within me further than my own loneliness and anti-social behavior has already gotten me. Can you see the effects of it already? I've been in the library for a couple of hours, curled up in a comfy chair (thank all the deities in heaven for libraries with comfortable chairs by windows) reading Pete Townshend's Horse's Neck, or at least the first eighty pages. I held out the hope that I could read through it all in one sitting, but the library closes at seven on Saturdays... They have no pity for people like me, people who don't have anything better to do than watch the lightning play across the pioneer cemetary from the fourth floor windows and listen to the thunder between chapters.
It's brilliance and disturbance and so many things that seem to be an integral part in many people's conception of good fiction. It's not that much of a break for me to be reading such, though I spend most of my time reading lighter fare, I'm drawn to humor and yet I also find great pleasure in nihilistic fiction, serious, dark things. Or darker things, at any rate. My other love is older science fiction, the stuff that walks the line from being easily dismissed by the serious (it's only science fiction, after all, the provenance of geeks and young boys with glasses who spend all their time in their dark rooms making model airplanes, right?) and bringing up serious issues in the nature of mankind and the destruction we're capable of.
I could try and cure myself of falling into obsessions the way I'm becoming more and more enamoured with every aspect of Pete Townshend, or at least all the aspects of his art and writing. There's the light and the serious and the same dabbling in science fiction that makes up all my tastes, and so it's like finding the ideal artist to feed all my inclinations. I could try to stop obsessing, and I worry a little (a very little) of how my behavior looks to the rest of the world, but it wouldn't be half so fun and satisfying not to explore every nuance of something I enjoy. It makes me feel like a lot of my previous loves and obsessions (I throw around the term without thinking about how serious it perhaps is--I think I have a lot of excess mental energy and I channel it into my interests) seem very silly and shallow. But that, I think, is the effect of the moment. I still love the music of Michael Nesmith, I'm amazed at how productive he was during the Hits/Ranch Stash era and I do have a deep appreciation for that music, but I have to admit to being highly disappointed in his book, The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora. He does not translate to prose without so little seeming effort as Townshend does. I think I'm exaggerating, and I'm going to try to be more objective again.
It's a lovely book, interesting how he goes from talking about himself in the first person to writing from the point of view of someone interacting with a musician named Pete. There are some very good passages that I ended up writing down, writing furiously in my little notebook in the silence (apart from the occasionally booming thunder) of the library, the little window-surrounded alcove that I laid claim to.
All in all, a very satisfying evening.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
