Never Trust A Prankster

» Dhalgren13 - This is A Reply I Recieved

This was posted on my comments, and after checking with the author (named Pogo) they cleared me to post it:

A brief rebuttal
A basic principle of “good writing” is to avoid mixed metaphors, as they are generally identified as undesirable. Never have I known the bell ring of literature of run over common sense in the chaotic pathways of life. Perhaps it was Tom Paine’s pamphlet muddied in the gutter. Perplexed, I shall not unravel the twisted thought that turns here. A second is to avoid sweeping generalizations and absolutes as they are extremely difficult to defend or prove as true.
Not all writers and artists exploit other peoples’ problems and pain to hustle a buck. Many would be seriusly affronted by such a statement, and frequently writers use their pens and skill to defend those who are both faceless and voiceless, the undertrodden of society. Not all writers move their characters about like chessmen upon the board. Many are idealists and transcendentalists as well as those who decry capitalism. Surely there are those who earn their bread by selling sex and blood to tabloids, but are they the greater number? Are they, the ones whom we remember? Whose works are stored in archives? If writers were only hustlers with incredible god complexes, would Leaves of Grass, Scarlet Letter or Walden exist? Was Thoreau a hustler? a man who would not work or earn more than for that he immediately needed? Or perchance Virginia Woolf? Did they write only to satiate their greed through the exploitation of others’ misery? or to be miniature Napoleans with godlike powers to live their lives vicariously through their characters? Is this the motivation and inspiration that created Thomas Hardy’s Jude or D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly. If so, he died in vain from tuberculosis, clearly uninformed. Consider the enchanting lyricism of Yeats: “Once more the storm is howling and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on...” A prayer for my daughter Is a writer something of a doghnut that is rolled and fried in deep fat to be sold and bought over a counter-top? Something that is merely handled to satisfy the appetite?
Consider Henry Adams or Thomas Jefferson a hustlers with god complexes. Or Abraham Lincoln who got shot for saying and doing as he thought. Had they lost their wars, or failed their cause, they would have died with the thoughts they penned. Ironically, It is Abe’s that we all recite from heart, although he had not the articulate skill of the others.
Those journalists that are present in the face of war, are hustlers? Perhaps some are,but their buck is small if writing for a newspaper, and their risks are far greater and immediate as there is no guarantee for lives. War and bombs are arbitrary and do not stop to read the presscard tucked within the cap. Nor are the newspapers profitting. Read the latest R&P: Orange County Register eliminates 102positions; Washington post Earnings Fall 95%; Tribune posts $139mil loss; Media General posts 3d Quarter loss. The journalists are earning big bucks, maybe. But then Hemingway a hustler? Perhaps, but Steinbeck, surely belongs to another class. Certainly, he is considered to be a protagonist of human rights by portraying the exploited.
Consider Theodore Dreiser, the author of American Tragedy, much remembered for his generosity.
Mark Twain died in poverty, although he hustled all his life, in spite of all he wrote. He invested in a new printing press and it divested him.
Professors, historians and critics analyze the writer by his work; it is the mirror of his mind. There are those who are difficult to comprehend or find a particular slant. There are others that re confused and are often portrayed contrary to to their intent. Teachers tell their budding students that Hawthorne was a Puritan and although he abhored slavery, Twain is cast a racist. It’s difficult to fathom.
Artists and writers frequently that they have failed the gift within, or cannot match their skills to inspiration or please the muses whim. They are merely instruments upon which the song is played; the beggars in the great Kings’ court. Ask a bird what it sings, and you receive the song. It knows no other existence than the livelihood of song, nor can it tell you how the music came to him or the technicalities of the trill, for any scientist can tell you that a trill is an impossibility and inexplicability-- something akin to the hummingbird’s flight.
So Tagore who sits and waits so patiently upon the roadside for his evening hour, has waited, and written... “I am here to sing thee songs. In this hall of thine I have a corner seat. In thy world I have no work to do; y useless life can only break out in tunes without a purpose. When the hour strikes for thy silent worship at the dark temple of midnight, command me, my master, to stand before thee to sing.” Gitanjali 15 (transl Yeats 1918)

a hustler? with a god complex? then why did Satre go mad?

mcl/pogo 801 words

-- posted by Dhalgren13

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» Dhalgren13 - Re: This is A Reply I Recieved

In response to message posted by Dhalgren13:

I will merely state at this juncture that Walt Whitman was perhaps the most egotistical writer who ever lived, as were most of the transcendentalists, including Emerson and Thoreau, given that they all in one way or another likened themselves to god. Also, anyone who has taken upon themselves the duties of a god, i.e. to create and shape realities, must have the mind set of a god, no matter how humble they profess to be, it requires an immense amount of will to do so, and thus an immense amount of self confidence and ego. If they weren't trying to make a buck, they wouldn't have sold their work. D.H. Lawrence was brashly and openly controversial, spitting in the face of upper middle class values, also an act that requires much confidence and ego, to defy the status quo. There is little to no point to discussing the contradictory self nature of men like Jefferson, who indeed did have an ego, and quite an ego at that. There is nothing wrong with this situation. It is merely addressing the problem from a realistic and un-idealistic stand point. An artist creates in order to make a stamp on the face of time, history and the universe.

-- posted by Dhalgren13

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» Jack_Acid - Re: Re: This is A Reply I Recieved

In response to message posted by Dhalgren13:

So I was just looking for pictures of the pranksters when I found this instead.

I am a writer of no renown, and yet I still write. I write for the same reason Whitman does. I write because I can speak for many people at once. Many people who would not speak otherwise. I can feel exactly as they feel. So what, lots of people can feel as others do, why does that make me special. In short it doesn't.
The thing that makes me different is that I right it down.

The feeling you express in the original piece is the dichotomy of all writers. They wish to humbly chart the emotions of the everyman, but as soon as they sign their name they join the ranks of the literary (literate) elite, and in doing so remove themselves from the everyman.

This is the ego leap that writers must make if they wish to be considered as writers at all. If you remain among the masses you are a just another writer. If you purposefully remove yourself you are a false and everyone will see. You have to accept that what you do is different, but also accept that experiencedereincecd and what you write is experiencepereience as everyone else.

Pogo is right on but anyone who references Walt Kelly is okanatchh me, natch.

-- posted by Jack_Acid

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