show don't tell is morally and intellectually superior and my tendency to feel there's something deeply wrong-headed about "tell" is...right on

i am snippy a/f about things that are dumb;
show don't tell

it makes me mad

and as you can imagine since i spend too much time [writing], question this

i'm write. an instagram post reminded me why.

the post.

the assumptions behind it; the story
i found that i did not even want to put a "tilt shift" filter on, that draws the eye to certain elements

and it was not that i cared (or did not care) how people got it

it was that this is / was a delicate topic; i was taking a small fact out of context as always we are, even if that context is made up -- the process of presenting something textual or imagistic IS the process of decontextualizing and focusing something, in order to examine and follow its course

and in telling the reader...anything, i'd be prescribing a WHOLE SET of complex views

i am totally comfortable with my views on this thing. here, i am happy to summarize them right here: while it could just be chance, i thought that this streetfront pic of a 24-hour bail bondsman right next to a Pilates studio nicely encapsulated the ongoing debate about gentrification going on the small city of Oceanside, CA. I don't think that's that controversial, and I'm happy to discuss that view with anyone who does.

but i wanted to post a picture and tell you a story. not be some assh0le telling you what to think. and in a sense it's way harder, to not be an asshole. there's a human temptation. there's trying to _tell_ the story just right (in this case, i failed; the perspective obscures the 'pilates' sign too much; the eye doesn't quite travel to it, enough) (i was literally standing in traffic to take this. on labor day saturday, on a beachfront avenue. gimme a break)

simplifying, finding "it" the problem of words

your shedu realization
it's there
it's inside it
this 'best' true version

what's very frustrating is that it's there cuz you made it (or picked it out of the collected observations and impulses and experiences that are 'you' -- whatever)

the shedu
'it was right there the whole time'



the exercise at business school
being good at words [lean into that]
but then facile way

if you're doing a thing with words, if it's words words words words

they are bullshit! they are not real things! they are signifiers, they are this construct we've made--that is miraculous fun beautiful important--but that is nonetheless just a series of shadows of actual things, meaning either material or abstract but real 'love'

and i'm familiar with the idea that our perception and cognition is shaped by words; i.e., that it also goes in the other direction
as a 'words person', this thrills me. this idea that you in fact perceive more shades of red (really; not in some made-up 'feeling' way, like these are empirically different shades) if you know the words for them [i think that example particularly struck me because i am pretty good at words language but awful at color; frequent conversation

JAMES: yeah no the red bag.
JAMES' VISUALLY SUPERGIFTED SISTER: ...
JAMES: the...fucking, the red ba--
JAMES VSS: The pink bag.
JAMES: the...fine.
JAMES VSS: that is pink. it's not close.
JAMES: fine.

I don't have some perceptual idiosyncrasy to fall back on here, btw; or I don't believe so and have never tested for one. I'm just, for lack of a better word (words!), stupid at colors. ANYWAY.

so this basic challenge of words are your vehicle
and sometimes, to some extent, your topic

a HUGE part of what beats at the heart of Erra for me is what we need in narrative and fantastical reconstructions of events that we (meaning: humans. always forever; the whole time we've been us) construct in order to try to make sense of ourselves and the world; so to that extent words-in-themselves and things-that-are-made-of-words are indeed your topic
but...unless you're writing a book like this
they are nonsense!
they are bullshit!
they are a blind alley! a duck blind! (no not that). a red herring! [] [] []


you're making a movie. you're making ___ (not the second one; also, example given in drop-headed sorrow at recent)
that is truly what you are doing in that
the thing in your heart that you are expressing is courage and virtuous connection; pushing your mental limits in an active and engaged way; the limn where what we understand and what we cannot meet, as it always does for all of us no matter what we think, and the stories we use and tell to navigate that shoreline and sometimes traverse it, travel out over depths of what-we-cannot-ever-know; velocity; friendship
that's a knobby way of saying it, but seriously that's like a very similar set of concerns as...I don't know, ___
that's what you (I) want to elicit in the reader

i'm not trying to put prose below movies in a hierarchy here; i am trying to use a non-verbal example
just
the tools by which ___ achieved these things are [] and [] and [] and []
and your tools are words

parallel the problems

admittedly, there is a whole different kind of thing
that's not what you're writing!

that is maybe a distinction between "awesome" and "art"
not that art is not awesome
but art is interrogative and...meta, in its examination of its own form

this is a bullshit word because
dickens
shakespeare
[]
[]
entertainments

i'm writing an entertainment

i'm trying to make it good enough, tbh, this is really what i'm trying to do

point being: f*ck you and your dumb little words. they are vectors; they are tools; they are starlight to ride and the moment they fade
or they flicker too bright so the reader says, "oh, hey starlight"
you have not done your job

your ego
or your lack of skill
or your lack of confidence (same as ego, many times)
have tripped you up

be braver and work harder and put in more time
you'll make it good

you'll use few enough words
and the right words

work.

a universe cupped in the palm of your hand

erra, and understanding everything
in a way that requires no 'recall', further
mastery

Entries Past #1: "Holy Crap, Part One"

My New Year's Resolution in 2015 (i.e., going into 2016) was to tell no lies ever to anyone. I knew that I'd fail (and recorded my failures, whenever they inevitably came), but it felt and feels like a good goal.

Unsurprisingly, it's most challenging in semi-trivial social situations. Like--I hope!--most of us, I don't go around lying to my friends, or even chalking up the small misrepresentations that under this rubric do get tagged as 'lies'. But in semi-trivial social situations--not totally trivial, where you just breeze through, but with people who aren't quite friends either--I found I had the frequent impulse to lie ("absolutely! dinner soon!" ⇐ This is a lie, if you know it won't happen).

It was important, from the start, to establish a sense of the line between 'omission' and 'lie'. The best example of something at the line is answering "How are you?" It's probably obvious that it's not a 'lie' to answer that question by barfing up every single thing about 'how you are' at this moment to whatever poor person has unwittingly put themselves in the cross-hairs of your radical transparency. On the other hand, a bright 'yeah, great!' when really you're not is probably kind of a lie. What a lot of it comes down to, to me, is the intention; 'how are you?' is a pretty reflexive question -- in most day-to-day situations the person is explicitly not saying, "unburden yourself unto me." BUT, in most day-to-day situations, they probably are saying, "hey, person that i know: what is up?" So that's where the measure of what an 'honest' answer to that question comes from.

Why am I talking about this?!? Because! This is a space that I perceive to be between me and my friends. While that's literally true, it's also figuratively true: like it is for many people, the act of writing this stuff out is an act of friendship for me. NOT LIKE I THINK I'M DOING YOU SOME SERVICE!! Oh my gosh that'd be hilarious. No: but I think the space, if you will, of this blog is a friendship space defined mostly by your presence here right now as a reader, and it is a solace and relief to me that I'm grateful for.

So I feel bad that I've lied to you.

Remember the line between 'lies' and 'omission'? I was looking over my drafts of unfinished blog posts--these go back years--and my sense of it began to push from the (okay) to the former (not). The issue was the volume and scope of things I have left unsaid; things I have wanted to say but--and here is the crux HERE'S WHAT'S HARD ABOUT NOT LYING MOSTLY (unless you're a nefarious thief)--lacked the skill or time to say in a way that was worthy of reading, rather than some simpler lying way that fell back onto established scripts that shield the speaker and obscure the essential specific truth of a given instance.

Buuuuuuuuuut...also, these are posts from years ago, and a lot of them are not "good" ideas, or "good" posts. I certainly do not want to spend hours writing up bad ideas I had six years ago.

Thus, this series: "Entries Past".

In "Entries Past" I will give quick and rough treatment to each of these drafts. There will be a format, perhaps fine-tuned over time but outlined quite clearly in the first entry, below. And that's it! Will cruise through 'em! Sometimes, I will not remember what the heck I was getting at. These will be the best ones.

Title Holy Crap, Part One

Body Last Tuesday I mistimed a dusk run out and back on Westridge, a trail in the Santa Monicas that runs about 3.5 miles (during which time you do about 500 feet in elevation). I was 25 minutes later than intended, and my dusk run became a night run in its latter half, for which I was unprepared, particularly in that I had no light. Running along the Westridge fire road - a trail wide and clear enough for a car -  is pleasant and challenging during the day, and nice enough at dusk except that apparently there are invisible rattlesnakes who want to kill you. At least this is how my predicament who was explained to me by a woman running ahead of me on the way down, by which time it was quite dark.

Date 10/16/11

Rating 11/10

Notes I totally remember this run. I hadn't lived in L.A. that long (I moved here in March of 2011, but volleyed back and forth between the coasts that summer and didn't start to settle until July (6 years ago!!!)). I remember being on the Westridge fire road as dark descended more quick and dark than expected; I remember losing first the fine then the broad contours of the trail, my pace slowing and step getting more careful in fear of twisting an ankle. And I remember this lady, who 100% got way up in bizness as I passed her, about the snakes and the lateness and how unsafe it was to run at night without a headlamp.

[note] erra is not a fucking blog post

 Okay I mean maybe not 100% of the time; someone who comes to Erra with an Internet-y reading style where you don't y'know haHA read ALL the words...that reader is gonna have a hard time and don't feel bad for that. Erra is not a fucking blog post. BUT that doesn't apply to most readers, and it would be very very very lazy--honestly, kinda of contemptible--for me to turn any individual reader's confusion into anything but a commentary on me, on the writing.

I don't think or hope that my art is like throwing bricks at peoples' heads. But for some reason that's the metaphor I always use for this stuff. It's why I, for example, um actually really like some (SOME) of Michael Bay's films: cuz if the brick hits you in the f#*cking head then a lot of the other stuff really just does not matter. The issue with the "other stuff" being bad is kind of only if makes the brick not hit. important note, given the example I've chosen: the "other stuff" rendered unimportant includes, in this case, some clunky/awful storytelling and tacky humor. It does not include the mean-spirited and thoughtless resort to lazy gender and racial tropes; that always matters, meaning your brick turns to dust and your edifice falls if it's made of these things.]

Okay so I'm doing a bang-up job keeping this short!



What these building blocall mean change dramatically given your life situations--e.g., kids--but that You can stash that second part for a few days if you're really jamming on a deadline or whatever (that being the relevant issue in my case; in your work it may be a different thing but you know what I mean). But actually, it's pretty dumb to stash that second part: the part where you also balance yourself with some pleasure/nourishing recreation (seriously just look at the word: re·creation; and no I'm not homonymically mixing up etymologies, fam -- the word as we use to mean "doing fun stuff" is from the Latin recreatio ("restoration to health", per Merriam-Webster); there is indeed another later usage meaning "to create something again" which is slapping a "re" before "create" -- different word).

Bearded --> Not; But Really: Erra

I've been feeling caught in the time suck of Hotel California (you will not be surprised by the link, don't...fine. welcome back). I've been feeling as if I've been doing the same thing for years, spinning through a cycle of seasons that blend. I feel this way because it is taking so long to finish Erra, of course.

And I am right. It's true.

It's also not THAT true.

This post is about that. Because in a series of pictures taken almost exactly one year ago, I recall that just one year ago I had that preposterous freaking beard -- in fact, I'd had it for months! And, and, just one year ago I was in the midst of mending my psyche after getting rolled by a ♀. And, just one year ago, some neighbors who were always very generous to me performed one of their most-generous-ever services: improving my face by removing that beard.

What preposterous beard, you ask?

It would be disingenuous of me to be like, oh, WHAT I was thinking?! that thing looks so stupid! I mean yes: it looks stupid. But I mostly thought that throughout the period that I had it, too. I know exactly what I was thinking. (Did I explain here, ever? I can't remember -- I said it to so many people. Sorry if I did.) What I was thinking was: I am obsessed all the time (Erra). My obsession is 'captivating' in both good and bad ways. In order to be in good faith with those around me, I should wear some mark of this obsession, some aspect so that people can know--even if they do not know what I'm obsessed with--that I am a person deranged and obsessed.

Also, I was thinking that I look dumb with a beard--it grows strange on my face--so yeah basically I'm punishing myself to get this thing done.

And what's a little...okay, "interesting" is a stretch; what for me is interesting is that these pictures of me and my idiot beard, recalling the thinking and actually having the thing on my face, help me recall more about the arc of the process with Erra.

What I remember is swims. The swims of the summers of 2016 and 2015, and how they were different.

Here we are, now: 2017. I will withhold account of what my swims are/were/will be "about" this summer. Let's see!

The summer of 2016--that's the summer you're looking at pictures of now; the summer during which I had then shaved off this dumb beard--I was spending long ocean swims kind of zoning out (not like that, mom -- don't worry; very attentive to surroundings). My brain would lapse into rhythm and pace and stroke count. But, in that state, I would also kind of roll around with thoughts, considerations. And the essence of these thoughts/considerations was VERY uneasily slipping into the idea that making Erra as good as I believed and believe it could/can be is going to take way too long; that this crazy notion I'd had a few months earlier (Jan/Feb 2016), this idea of going back and reworking Column 5 just a bit, was a good idea in that Column 5 needed it, I wasn't futzing around.

But it was also a very bad idea in that...well, it is now 2017. I'm working to finish up Column 2, having taken this approach all the way back to the beginning. So, y'know: bad idea as well, clearly.

Then, if we go back another summer--to the summer of 2015--I recall different swims. In these swims, 2015, my mind was wandering in ways that seem funny to me, now.

I was trying to figure out the story.

I knew the story, but I wasn't satisfied with it. Crucial elements of the first draft that I'd written...almost two years (?!?) before that were just not clicking. NOT "in need of reworking"; I hadn't found quite the right things: events, plot widgets. Plot widgets, mostly. And I would spend these swims trying to find them: feeling a rush as I attached myself to some idea that occurred to me, even as I knew elsewhere in my mind that this idea wasn't it

stroke-stroke ocean ocean "there's a pelican, that's so nice"

And plot widgets, again.

I don't remember the summer of 2014 in this way, one way or another. I'm not sure how much I was swimming then. I did not have a beard. I've only ever once had a beard, during this latter part of 2015/first part of 2016 that we're temporally dancing through here.

My point is, I guess, that the maddening incrementalism of most kinds of progress--at least "progress" such as I'm currently able to achieve it--might sometimes obscure ways that things are indeed changing, progressing. Perhaps improving, although honestly that seems a bit much.

Anyway.

game on.

This was a fun for, like, a transitional day

the specific derailments. rereilments. whatever

"No." Emmy kept her eyes down.

"C'mon it's why you are—"

"You keep—" Emmy snapped up; Grace tipped her head, waiting. "You keep saying that. You don't know wh—"