A Curmudgeon? Who Me?

Tucson Weather Today

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I have been thinking about returning to the often thankless task of entering some of my deeper thoughts into my online journal, those personal pages within my domain which only those who have the link are able to enter.

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Philip Pullman recently posted the following: "I don’t believe in dissing books I used to love..." Mr. Pullman is a published author and book collector, so I felt some distress because he used the word "dissed" instead of 'disrespecting.' Using popular slang is not forbidden of course, and any writer is certainly free to use any word he cares to, but I feel that doing so, at least in this case, shows disrespect for the English language.

Or am I just being an old curmudgeon?

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Romney Uniquely Qualified For President said South Dakota Senator John Thune. I'm not sure exactly what it means to be "uniquely qualified."

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I read a poem that made me question (again) the difference between modern poetry and prose.

Fun, Fun, Fun When the Guy Goes Away
by Hal Sirowitz

That's a strange question to ask
a woman at a bar, she said. "Are
you having fun?" If I wanted
to have fun I wouldn't have come here.
This is a lot of work. I have
to decide which guy, out of
all the jerks here, has the potential
of becoming my future husband.
I mostly just have looks to go on,
since the conversation is usually
minimal--like the one we're having now.

"Fun, Fun, Fun When the Guy Goes Away"
by Hal Sirowitz,
(Before, During & After, Soft Skull Press, 2003.)

I've read the poem time and again, and I can only surmise that it is recognized as being a poem simply because of its line breaks, without which it would surely be classified as prose.

Sometimes I fear that by posting my honest thoughts, some of the conclusions I come to and write about in this blog merely serve to illustrate my abysmal lack of culture, formal education, and basic intelligence... to those readers who possess culture, formal education, and basic intelligence.

Ah well... so be it.

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A man and a woman who have never met before find themselves sharing a sleeping car on an overnight train. After some initial embarrassment, they both go to sleep in their bunks...But in the middle of the night, the woman leans over and says to the man: "I'm sorry, but I'm a little cold. Could I trouble you to get me another blanket?"

"I've got a better idea," the man replies with a glint in his eye. "Just for tonight, let's pretend we're married."

"OK, why not," giggles the woman.

"Great," the man says. "Get your own damn blanket!"

(From: Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind, MIT Press, 2011)

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Yes, I have decided to go ahead with my plan to enter my deeper thoughts into my new Journal but it might take me a few days to write a worthwhile entry. I wonder if I can still write an intelligent and coherent sentence. Time will tell, as they say.
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. . . And The Scoundrel Christ

I have been reading about Philip Pullman, and what I've read so far is intriguing indeed. I intend to search the local Public Library for his most recent book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (2010), a retelling of the story of Jesus, which divides him into two separate figures: Jesus, a loving and radical preacher, and Christ, his smart and manipulative twin who twists his brother's message and establishes a power structure in order to ensure that Christianity survives.

Philip Pullman said: "I have always written what I wanted to write. I have never considered the audience for one second. Ever. It's none of their business what I write! Before publication, I am a despot."

Philip Pullman

On the Philip Pullman website Mr. Pullman writes --

As a passionate believer in the democracy of reading, I don't think it's the task of the author of a book to tell the reader what it means.

The meaning of a story emerges in the meeting between the words on the page and the thoughts in the reader's mind. So when people ask me what I meant by this story, or what was the message I was trying to convey in that one, I have to explain that I'm not going to explain.

Anyway, I'm not in the message business; I'm in the “Once upon a time” business.


According to The Writer's Almanac --

His favorite stories as a kid were the cowboy and gangster shows on the radio, ghost stories, and also comics, especially Superman and Batman. He said, "I was sure that I was going to write stories myself when I grew up. It's important to put it like that: not 'I am a writer,' but rather 'I write stories.' If you put the emphasis on yourself rather than your work, you're in danger of thinking that you're the most important thing. But you're not. The story is what matters, and you're only the servant, and your job is to get it out on time and in good order."



Okay . . . back to work on my own writing, on my story for The Writers Halloween Short Story Writing Contest. Only one more day till deadline: Midnight Wednesday October 20, 2010.

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