Tyler Weaver's Blog, page 62

Tom Petty

“I got a room at the top of the world tonight 

I can see everything tonight 

I got a room where everyone 

Can have a drink and forget those things 

That went wrong in their life”

— Tom Petty, “Room at the Top,” from ECHO (1999)

Music is uniquely singular and universal; it is the power of the language to transcend boundaries and speak to all as it speaks to one. Few spoke as personally and universally as Tom Petty. And few had as good a time doing it.

The power of geniuses is that they operate on three planes: theirs, as the works they create are for themselves first, because they simply must (“To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men—that is genius,” Emerson said); the collective world, as their works are heard/seen/read/studied by many or even all at one point in their lives (again, Emerson: “In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”); and our own personal listening.

Tom Petty operated across all three with equal aplomb.

For all of his innumerable classics, it is his rarely-played 1999 album, ECHO, that remains the most important to me. It was my gateway drug to all of his music, to his thoughtful and relentless crusades against artistic injustice wrought by record companies and publishers. It is a distillation of him: vulnerable, relentless, rocking. Seeing him in concert the following year was a revelation: an artist fully in command of his talents with an unparalleled connection to his audience and his band.

A line in a 2000 interview in the Oxford American, published shortly after the release of ECHO, distills Tom Petty to his essence and longevity: “I just don’t want to do anything that I can’t feel like I’m doing honestly.”  Tom Petty did everything with a stark honesty;  his music will remain a roadmap to his path and the immortal sounds with which he left us.

Oh my my, oh hell yes.

(TW)

Returning / Perhaps

Unclear if contemplating / executing a return to these pieces is the solution to an actual problem or the solution to a problem erected of my brain’s need to have problems to solve that are far less challenging than the narrative problems in the work in progress.

But I am here, so I might as well make the most of it.

The problem that I hope this iteration of my unvarnished meanderings will solve is a general lack of gusto upon returning to my office after breakfast as well as my recurrent quarterly loathing of online existence (but that can wait). I’m up here by 0600, depart to eat a diabetically-mandated breakfast at 0700, then return around 0750-0800, after the feeding of the dog children and subsequent general revolving door and a persual through the morning’s news (which may be at the root of the problem as I’ve yet to convince myself that I can safely avoid the news during these writing hours).

Whereas writing in my journal is the opening illegible release of the first block, its luster is lost upon the return, an obligation rather than a joy (before reverting to a joy as the WIP slog marches on). And so here I am, typing and hoping that these pieces will help return my brain to the writing and to the blank pages of the work in progress and perhaps, gasp, even give me something approximating enjoyment for even a scintilla of time before they too become relegated to the domain of obligation.

(TW)

The Price of Saving Face: 22 Million People

I hold out little hope that Senator McCain will do something dramatic in his Senate return today. He will vote yes on the MTP to debate the Better Care Reconciliation Act–or more appropriately, the Allow What Passes for Republican Leadership to Save Face and Not Get Angry Tweets at the Expense of the Lives of 22 Million Americans Act–and thus be hailed as an inspirational hero to the needs and wants of clueless rich white men.

In the aftermath of the passage of a vote to talk about it, there will be another beer party (probably); there will be endless equivocation (Well, Chuck, I think it’s important we at least debate the measure, even though I know most of my constituents hate it, are scared of it, and have no idea what’s in it; we’re so much alike in that way, I really feel for them, blah blah blah); there will be praise and applause and tight-smiled politician-emoting for Senator McCain—much of it deserved, but none of which is deserved for his likely vote today to deny others the same access to worry-free health care that will enable him to cast his vote in Washington today.

Never underestimate the lengths rich white men will go to to save face.

(TW)

Exorcism by Iteration / Sarcasm

Looking back at the countless discarded iterations of the work in progress, one thing is clear: much of my effort has been focused on the exorcism of sarcasm and the simmering resentment towards the place I call home. Earlier drafts were written in a different headspace: I only saw the present as an amalgamation of the past and the perception of returning to this place as failure; I failed to see it for what it is. This normally would be the place that I would pontificate on what, precisely, “it” is, but I don’t know: maybe that’s the whole point of writing the book, to explore the question and deliver myself a dosage of understanding that makes my existence here more (present) / (tolerable) / (resembling a life) / (all of the above).

(TW)

Derailment

With each passing day, the Trump crazy train hurtles towards its inevitable derailment.

Nixon—for all of his paranoia—had the self-awareness and sense of history to know when the game was over; Trump lacks any of that. He replaces it instead with a superhuman ability to convince himself that his word is the truth and that his truth is reality. His is a life fueled by ego and the distortion of truth to his own benefit. There is no sense of place, there is no self-awareness; there is only his perception in that particular moment and, when reality—not the manufactured reality of glossy New York tabloids that sustained him but the reality of the world around him, of his past coming back to haunt him when he picks one fight too many, when he thinks himself too invulnerable, real reality—intrudes on that perception, all hell breaks loose.

It isn’t a question of if but one of when. In our last constitutional crisis of conscience, a paranoid yet self-aware and intelligent president resigned in disgrace; we have now only a paranoid tabloid junkie as we face this one. It will get far worse before it gets better.

(TW)

Challenge / QUIXOTE

I want to write these pieces more when I’m not writing them than when I’m writing them though their value becomes apparent in the act of writing them: a 20-minute warm-up to orient my brain into the necessary mode to be courageous enough to write horribly so that I may revise the work in progress into somewhat less horrible writing. They are a challenge, a challenge of endurance and of non-attachment: write them, post them, forget them, get on with the work.

After nearly two months and innumerable blinks in exhaustion and frustration, the summer’s Big Read, Miguel de Cervantes’s DON QUIXOTE, is complete. Resulting in a considerable to-read traffic jam (now 30+ books) exacerbated by the wonders of the local library’s $5.00 a bag book sale, a desire to read only short novels for a while, and an appreciation for how much literature still owes to Cervantes’s staggering work—the outsized influence of QUIXOTE on Borges (“Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”) / Quixote as precursor to the archetypal private eye: that figure that ventures through a world known or unknown and acts as a nigh-unchanging catalyst for revelations about those who populate that world, illuminating the views of the time and acting as a message in a bottle centuries hence; it is those around him who change—Sam Spade and Philip Marlow owe a debt to him / and, perhaps most head-scratchingly— how much of KICK ASS did Mark Millar base on QUIXOTE? (Note, these are only off the top of my head; I too am stunned that I included a luminary like Borges and a… less-than luminary like Millar in the same sentence).

A writing goal: rewrite QUIXOTE from the perspective of Rocinante and Dapple, easily the two most tragic figures in the tale.

Current read: IN THE COUNTRY OF LAST THINGS, by Paul Auster.

(TW)

In Which I Talk Myself Into Continuing These Posts

A week-plus into these postings and the familiar has arisen: what’s the point? is this really what I want to be doing?

Realization: there cannot be a gaining idea in these posts. There cannot be a point other than to write them. This is where the great mistake, agreeing to become executive director of a non-profit and allowing a new anxiety to treat my brain as its viral host, continues to plague, feeding off insecurity and the need for numerical expression of the worthiness of content. The ED role ended years ago, even though it hasn’t ended mentally. In their best iterations—in my best iteration–these Informalities act as a cheap means of transcending that insecurity and digital agoraphobia; in their worst, they are the means by which a new anxiety forms, using the great mistake as its vehicle for metastasizing.

As I let myself fall victim to the worst impulses of my brain’s fuckery, I found myself staring at the page on which they live and realized that I want to continue writing them because I enjoy writing them.

Quandary solved, for the moment.

Within 50 pages of the end of QUIXOTE, and our erstwhile heroes are again under the patronage of a rich asshole who wants to entertain himself at their expense. Rewrite from the perspective of Rocinante and Dapple.

(TW)

Of Clamshells and Grocery Bags

Local library sale over the last week. Went on Saturday for the final day, $5.00 per grocery bag. Came out with two and a half bags filled, one slung over my shoulder in my Guardian tote, the QUIXOTE traffic jam now a 30+ book pile-up, a glorious sight of spines and titles and possibilities.

Down ramps and stairs pointed out by persistent locative signage, the sale. A room of books begging to find a home and a row of VHS tapes that triggered fond memories of my grandfather renting movies from that library when I was growing up, movies he thought I should see. $0.50 rentals, or maybe $0.75. Row of red clamshells (for single-cassette films) and large charcoal clamshells (for the double-cassette films). Had I found some of the films I was raised on—the Bela Lugosi DRACULA (1931) (RIP Martin Landau), the double cassette charcoal clamshells of the Republic serials of William Whitney and John English, MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR SATAN (1940), THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL (1941), I would have filled even more grocery bags with memories. Briefly tempted by a VHS copy of THE ROCKETEER (1991) though I talked myself out of it.

Among the treasures: 1957’s A TREASURY OF THE WORLD’S GREAT DIARIES, edited by Philip Dunaway and Mel Evans. Looking forward to digging into it and seeing what awaits. Also: an early hardback of ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE to join my early paperback copy of the same.

QUIXOTE progress: p. 815 of 891. Light at the end of the tunnel. The traffic jam honks.

(TW)

Input/Output 09 July – 15 July 2017

A Sunday thing in lieu of new words, a compendium of links read and links created.

Highlights from a week in inputs:

This Town Melts Down (via The New York Times Magazine)

The GOP’s moral rot is the problem, not Donald Trump Jr. (via The Washington Post)

Naomi Watts: ‘My soul was being destroyed’ (via The Guardian)

What Robert Mueller Learned from Enron (via ProPublica)

The Gathering Storm vs. The Crisis of Confidence (via Foreign Policy)

Fear and Loathing in the Trump White House (via The New Yorker)

Christian Scott on Making Your Own Rules (via The Creative Independent)

How to Be a Writer on Social Media: Advice from Roxane Gay, Alexander Chee, Celeste Ng, and Adam M. Grant (via Literary Hub)

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The week in Informalities:

Sunday, 09 July 2017 – Returning Again / Phase Something or Other

Monday, 10 July 2017 – CASTLEVANIA (In Concept)

Tuesday, 11 July 2017 – Desk, Et Cetera

Wednesday, 12 July 2017 – Notes on the Removal of Time

Thursday, 13 July 2017 – Of Feral Beasts

Friday, 14 July 2017 – Lynch/Ellroy

Saturday 15 July 2017 – Carbs / Twitter / Fragmentation

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The next installment of my bi-weekly newsletter featuring exclusive content and access to new stories and essays, drops Sunday, 23 July. You can sign up here.

New words return tomorrow.

Carbs / Twitter / Fragmentation

Since that fateful October less than a year ago when my pancreas switched from automatic to manual transmission, a new process has emerged: before each meal, I stab myself in the finger (usually the middle one) to give Tabitha, the glucometer, the blood sacrifice so that she may give me a numerical expression of how sweet I am. Then, depending on the meal, I take the proper corresponding ratio of insulin to carbs (it changes with each meal, increasing from none with breakfast because I run six miles a day to 1:10 at dinner because I’m sedentary and watching HOMELAND in the evenings). I’m eating healthier than I’ve ever eaten and most importantly, I’m genuinely feeling good for the first time in longer than I care to remember.

I’ve since started to apply this to other aspects of my life: if I must control my carb/sugar intake in food, what then is considered a carb in my other diet, the media diet?

Twitter has been a life-changer, an addiction, a source of information, and a source of anxiety, usually within the same day. Hell, within the same “check-in.” But it has to be controlled now: the fragmentation that it inspires, my brain leaping from one thought to the next like the digital voices that I allow in my head, has to be corralled. Anxiety, jealousy, success, failure, amusement, bemusement, and, of course, the resultant feelings of ineptitude when I can’t come up with the right combination of 140 characters to properly convey my feelings on a particular subject and revert to amusing GIFs.

These posts are part of that path to control or at least a modicum of being able to tell myself that. To convey the thought of the day, unlock my brain for the work at hand, and to try to bring myself a quantum of solace (bad James Bond flick, great sentiment) by not caring what people think, to de-fragment my brain by exorcising the thoughts that pass through it on the way to the work I must do to, as Leonard Cohen said, “discover my self-respect. To redeem the day. So that the day does not go down in debt.”

To work.

(TW)