C.A. Hall's Blog, page 14
July 18, 2014
My circuit's dead
Clarification: some of you may think of this as a self-help blog. I can understand why. Up until this point I've been shitting out enthusiasm as if I could float away on it like a cloud over cliffs and valleys far off into space. But, this isn't a self-help blog. It's just me spewing whatever's on my mind. (Isn't that what a blog is?) Well today you get this: It's Friday and I'm blocked. Not normal, I'd-rather-play-my-guitar blocked or masturbating-seems-like-a-decent-way-to-spend-an-afternoo...
July 3, 2014
Motivation, Momentum & Pills
I have high blood pressure. I've probably had it for a long time. Avoiding years of doctors appointments, I couldn't have known. I was living miles under limestone and shale, where the light of reality could never find me. The last thing I wanted was some fool in a white coat telling me that I was drinking, eating and smoking my way to a speedy burial. Even in the land of knowledge, we are still allowed the mercy and distance of illogical denial, should we choose it.
Now, every morning I tak...
June 26, 2014
Creativity: The Monster and The Stairs
Ok. So there are creative people and then there are non-creative people. And among the creative people there are prolific people and there are those who struggle with the muse. These are staple thoughts, right? They're things that we except blindly and like anything that can be stamped and repeated without the need for reasoning, they're utter bullshit.
I've been sitting at my desk for an hour looking at my to-do list. It says it's time to get some writing done, but instead of jumping to actio...
June 20, 2014
Comedy, Tragedy and Other Mythical Beasts
How do people do this? I'm just now coming to realize how difficult it is to come up with blog ideas. Maybe I put too much value them. Maybe I'm lazy. Maybe I'm just a neophyte. I'm looking at the computer without a clear and organized essay ready to come out, yet somewhere in my head is the voice of a forgotten face reminding me that: "Blog means not toiling over it. Blog means just write." Damn whoever that was and damn the people able to blog once a day or worse, multiple times. Yo...
June 13, 2014
Quitting
Quitters never win. Bullshit. Quitting is a virtue. On a sinking ship the difference between a fool and a survivor is knowing exactly when to quit and swim like hell.
Steve Jobs quit college and became one of the most influential business men of the last century. Michael Jordan quit basketball. Barry Sander quit football. John Lennon quit the Beatles. Sure two of them are dead but they made an undeniable impact on the world first. The point here is, quitters do win. Quitters win all th...
June 9, 2014
Too Late For The Nudes
It was a party and a group of us were looking for a laugh. We had a computer,it was hooked up to a projector and suddenly someone had the brilliant idea of going on ChatRoulette. What better way was there to up the ante on a night of drinking with friends? We were prepared to be shocked and possibly disgusted by a tidal wave of hair brush masturbators and ball swinging exhibitionists. Instead what we got was a guy singing Wrecking Ball as Kermit the Frog. Instead what we got were rooms of peo...
June 5, 2014
From Anxiety to Advice: 8 Ideas
What makes me expert enough to dole out advice? Nothing. Not a damn thing. I've spent a fat chunk of my life fucking up, fucking around and fucking off. Then one day, I got too damn tired of it; my body got too damn tired. It wasn't a heroic choice to change, I just started having panic attacks. For most people panic attacks are enough to shock them into re-evaluating their life, but me. To wake me up it took having a panic attack on top of extremely high blood pressure while I was suffering...
May 28, 2014
Albums of the Week
Turn On The Bright Lights (LP+MP3)
By Interpol
Love Is Real
By John Maus
It's All Around You
By Tortoise
May 19, 2014
Brief Thoughts on Richard Yates by Tao Lin
I've never wanted to hurt a character as much as I wanted to hurt Haley. I didn't want to just punch him, I wanted to beat his head into the ground until his skin split and his skull cracked. That's not the flaw of the author, it's his strength.
I've read a lot of complaints about Tao Lin's declarative writing style (or as some have said: lack of style). I found it difficult at first too, but it is in fact the detached, empty prose of Richard Yates that embodies the emotional immaturity and fr...
May 16, 2014
Contradictions
When you organize one of the contradictory elements out of your work of art, you are getting rid not just of it, but of the contradiction of which it was a part; and it is the contradictions in works of art which make them able to represent us—as logical and methodical generalizations cannot—our world and our selves, which are also full of contradictions.
— Randall Jarrell, "Some Lines from Whitman" from Poetry and the Age
