Quentin S Crisp

Last Exit for the Lost

Monday, January 21, 2013 8:14:40 PM

Earlier this evening, I went out into the snow, to the supermarket, to buy some carrots, a jar of honey and some sunflower seeds. (I forgot to buy some lapsang souchong.) I took the hilly route through the park, careful not to slip in the places where the snow had compacted into ice. I came to the bottom of the slope and left the park behind, passing under a railway bridge. To my left was fenced off waste ground, on which a developer's hut has squatted for over a year with no sign of change. Ahead - skeletal trees, and a part of the river - I'm not sure which river - not buried by concrete. Higher up, ahead and to the right, was the railway station, beneath whose line I had just walked. I had the feeling I had just emerged somewhere. There was snow, silence, darkness, sodium light, decaying brickwork, concrete... desertion. It seemed as if no one were around. I was alone. And then I heard a voice. It was a loud, calm, disembodied voice, coming from the cracked, sagging elevation on which the railway station lay. It said:

Please keep your belongings with you at all times. Unattended items may be removed or damaged by security staff. If you see anything suspicious, please report it to a member of staff.

Just the snow, the silence, the darkness, and this voice, coated in a lozenge of PA reverb - a pre-recorded female voice, almost human, only the intonation sounding robotic in its jerks and pauses.

I have decided to bring this blog, Directory of Lost Causes, to an end, and I would like to give some slight explanation here as to why, and do so with a grand enough flourish that I will not be able to change my mind. I have thought many times before about ending my blog, but that has generally been because of a sense of intolerable embarrassment at what I sometimes let hang out here. Embarrassment and fastidiousness, however, have not been powerful enough forces to make me quit.

I've started reading The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser. This is a quote therefrom:

Eric Schmidt [executive chairman of Google] likes to point out that if you recorded all human communication from the dawn of time to 2003, it'd take up about 5 billion gigabytes of storage space. Now we're creating that much data every two days.

People such as Eli Pariser and Jaron Lanier have been sounding warning notes about the direction in which the internet is moving for a while. They seem to be, from what I can gather, ultimately optimistic about the possibilities of the internet, however, suggesting that there are just a number of issues that have to be dealt with. My current feeling is this: That the internet is now preponderatingly - or is becoming - a force for evil in the world. No doubt you've heard the phrase, "The revolution will not be televised." I sincerely doubt that the revolution will find much of a fingerhold on the internet, either. In fact, my current impression is that the net is a vastly more insidious, vastly more powerful, vastly more poisonous tool for social control than television ever has been. Revolution? We're more likely, I suggest, to see a future in which the likes of Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg endlessly construct vast human centipedes of our personal information and harness them to power whatever special plan for this world Schmidts and Zuckerbergs have. We have been sold down the river. The 'content producers' are farmed before their throats are slit. Etc. Etc.

And in the meantime, the white noise of internet 'free content' continues - 2.5 billion gigabytes of it each day - and we have to try and catch, within this white noise, the EVP that may or may not be telling us something real.

No, I'm not committing cybercide. I will continue, for now, to use the internet. (Call me a hypocrite if you can and must.) But I wanted to step back and give myself a chance to think. I am a writer. I care about words. I care about communication. These things are my life. And nothing - it seems to me - has devalued words and communication like the internet.

Some general comments: I am not currently optimistic about the future of humanity, and it seems to me that the internet will have a large part to play in our ultimate downfall, if and when that comes. I cannot see that there is much hope for humanity, and the internet, to me, increasingly appears part of the hopelessness, rather than any sort of alternative. Having said that, I am not someone who prays for, or extracts some sense of schadenfreude from the idea of, the end of the human race. On the contrary, if such a thing were possible, I would sincerely love to see humanity fulfilling a potential that often seems promised. I do not consider it proven that the human race is inherently self-destructive. I do consider some cultures potentially more poisonous and more destructive than others, and these cultures can certainly assume that their destructive values are universal and make us try to believe that. Here's a quote from George Carlin:

When you are born in this world, you are given a ticket to the Freak Show, and when you are born in America, you have a front row seat.

Carlin, from what I can gauge, is generally seen as some kind of counter-culture hero, but the above quote has always appeared moronic to me. It could be taken as a hip, pop-culture form of anti-Americanism. But it's not. It's the same old American arrogance that the rest of the world is tired of. We're all freaks, right? But Americans are a better class of freaks, because they're the freakiest of all? Hence the front row. In other words - nothing matters as long as you're American. The rest of the world can go to hell. Just the view of another privileged American wallowing in the poison of being a privileged American, and tarring the world with the American brush in order to justify apathy.

It could be that there is something else apart from 'the Freak Show', but I'm losing hope of finding it on the internet (shepherded by arrogantly optimistic American geeks with daggers behind their backs, and their spineless, bandwagon counterparts across the globe), and I intend to look for it elsewhere.

So, for any generous souls who might miss me, well, I'll still be around here and there. For instance, I think it likely that more of my lyrics will be used by the brilliant Kodagain (I hope so). And there are ways to get in touch with me, probably, depending on when you're reading this, I suppose. There will be no more posts on this blog. I will attend to the comments for another week, and then I will disable all comments.

The Neverending Story

Comments

1 2 Next »

scott cummingI_ArtMan # Monday, January 21, 2013 9:37:29 PM

o.k. but you will be missed. why not at least have facebook presence so we can keep in touch easily. then when you have a new book published you can announce it to all.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Monday, January 21, 2013 10:15:55 PM

Thanks. The Facebook story is slightly complicated, but I deactivated my personal account (which I had under a pseudonym) earlier this year.

Will write more later.

Unregistered user # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 9:10:39 AM

Karl writes: Hi, Quentin. On the one hand, I'm sad to see your blog coming to an end, but on the other, I entirely understand and sympathise. I've been thinking lately of shutting down my own blog and Facebook a/c for all the reasons you nominate. Anyway, thanks for all the pleasure you've given with your writing here, and I hope you'll stay in touch via private correspondence. Best. Karl

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 1:30:30 PM

Originally posted by anonymous:

Anyway, thanks for all the pleasure you've given with your writing here

Thank you for reading. Must be brief for now, I think, but will attempt longer responses later.

Unregistered user # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 6:01:25 PM

Troubled Joe writes: I ordered your books through the Internet. I'll miss your blog, but your books are more substantial. They will never be deleted.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 6:55:02 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY7BPJeh30M

Thanks.

Unregistered user # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 7:46:13 PM

Troubled Joe writes: Thanks to you, Here's a video that reminded me of your wonderful "Italiannetto". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoXnSucvHSQ

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 9:53:56 PM

Originally posted by anonymous:

Thanks to you, Here's a video that reminded me of your wonderful "Italiannetto".

I enjoyed the film. Thank you.

For some reason, my ability to speak beyond the form of simple statements seems limited at present.

I was wondering - for instance - if I should qualify any of what I've written above, in case it appears foolish, etc., but I can't really think of any way in which I wish to qualify it. Oh, except, by calling the internet a force for evil, I didn't mean everything the internet contains is, necessarily, evil, any more than everything an abattoir contains is necessarily evil. I was thinking about this on the Tube earlier today, and I got the idea for the possible title of a song, which would be, 'Tea-break in the Abattoir'.

Because you can find spots for a nice tea-break almost anywhere.

Unregistered user # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 10:16:44 PM

Joe Simpson Walker writes: The trouble with a blog - and any internet site, more or less - is that if it's not being looked at every day by somebody, it's dying. I feel that my own site is inadequate because I only update it when I have some real news about its subject. But what's the alternative? To join in the "conversation", echoing the topic of the day - Obama's inauguration, the death of Michael Winner, a campaign against cats in New Zealand? Or to set down your domestic trivia? (I've got a headache. The snow's half-melted off our pavement. As of today I've re-read about half my completed draft of the new book. There you go!)

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 10:31:52 PM

Originally posted by anonymous:

The trouble with a blog - and any internet site, more or less - is that if it's not being looked at every day by somebody, it's dying.

Which is how I tend to feel about myself, too.

Originally posted by anonymous:

As of today I've re-read about half my completed draft of the new book. There you go!

You mean you've completed the draft? If so, well done. It's at least time for a cup of tea or something when a draft is completed.

Unregistered user # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 11:20:02 PM

Joe Simpson Walker writes: Yes, I completed the draft last week and am now re-reading it and making notes for revision. My feelings about it so far are - well, you'll see.

Unregistered user # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 11:46:41 PM

Anna Tambour writes: That there are too many words today, too much poison, arrogance, and ignorance on the internet, is indeed true. That it is impossible to follow someone who intermittently posts something, as you do, something that in your case, has great worth, is also true. I also despise what you describe so well as "The 'content producers' are farmed before their throats are slit. Etc. Etc." And yet... Only the other day I was recommending privately to someone something that you eloquently recommended in a much more generous way, in your post http://my.opera.com/quentinscrisp/blog/index.dml/tag/literature And much more important: you have exposed me and others you don't know to countless new ideas, experiences, and your unique way of looking at the world, not to mention your beautiful and lucid prose. That is what is good about the internet. There are still some blogs that manage to do this. Another favourite of mine is http://budak.blogs.com/ and I know that the person who runs this has similar feelings of the futile act of posting something that goes against the flow, something that has real meaning, that invites thought, something that comes from the heart and expects the people reading it to be thoughtful people too. I always think that garbage rises to the top and floats, yet it would be a tragedy if we let only it be stuff that covers the ocean of 'communication'. Your blog and your thoughts are like mangrove seeds, which can survive, even in a seatop glittering with plastic bags. Please reconsider, or have a break and come back.

Unregistered user # Wednesday, January 23, 2013 3:20:21 AM

Nathan Ballingrud writes: I agree with Anna, above. I've only recently discovered your blog and have come to regard it as a still point in the chaos. That being said, I understand and respect your reasons for shutting it down. But I'm sorry about it.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Wednesday, January 23, 2013 10:57:28 AM

My computer's going really slow of late. I'll try and write a little now, though.

Originally posted by anonymous:

I always think that garbage rises to the top and floats, yet it would be a tragedy if we let only it be stuff that covers the ocean of 'communication'. Your blog and your thoughts are like mangrove seeds, which can survive, even in a seatop glittering with plastic bags. Please reconsider, or have a break and come back.

Thank you. I think I need to do this, sadly. I think that we have to be able to believe that there is a world beyond the internet where things matter, that a thing can exist and be valid and have meaning in the world even if it is not uploaded. Partly, I want to assure myself that this is true.

I also want to contemplate the lost art of keeping a secret. Not the song I've just referenced, but the fact to which it is, in turn, referring.

Originally posted by anonymous:

I've only recently discovered your blog and have come to regard it as a still point in the chaos. That being said, I understand and respect your reasons for shutting it down. But I'm sorry about it.

Thank you. If I didn't feel it was already decided, I would be tempted to change my mind. I want to point out that this gesture is not me trying to turn my back on people. Actually, it's the opposite - I want to attempt connections in a world where computer algorithms are not considered superior to human intuitions. I am more determined than before to have actual contacts with humans, if that is at all possible in this era.

I'd also like to note something here, while I'm still writing things on my blog, that's kind of unrelated to all of the above. It's just something that's been on my mind.

For a very long time in my life I have been ambivalently preoccupied with Buddhism, gurus, enlightenment and so on. I think that, though the word is much devalued, spirituality is important. What two things can possibly be important? Survival and spirituality, and perhaps not the former without the latter.

Therefore the exploration of spirituality is at least - I believe - as important as the physical mapping of our world. However, we must come to terms with the fact (this is what I believe) that those who are dedicated to mapping spirituality are not to be worshipped.

One post that I have not got round to writing is a deconstruction of Eckhart Tolle, who may be sincere, but is not beyond criticism. In one of his video clips, someone asks him, "Have you ever regretted something you've said?", meaning at one of his - I gather, very expensive - events. He completely wins the audience (he is, indeed, very good at it) by starting with a joke, "Well, only the Pope is infallible." But then he goes on to say that no, he's never regretted anything he's said, because nothing he has said can possibly be wrong, because it's all about increasing awareness, and does not deal in concepts. I have been a Tolle-watcher (for better or worse) for many years, and there's a great deal more I could say aobut this, but mainly I would contend that Tolle does, indeed, deal in concepts, and that he should, therefore, be open to criticism. One of his main concepts is that thought is dysfunctional, of course. This is undoubtedly a concept and a judgement. It could very easily be a concept designed to stop your audience having thoughts of their own. I notice that Tolle says elsewhere, that Einstein was a thinker, "but a thinker whose thoughts were grounded in being". Ah, so it's all right to think, as long as Tolle approves your thoughts? Because that's the only criteron (listening to Tolle) that we have to go on: thoughts are dysfunctional unless he says otherwise. One more thing before I get to the bit I wanted to say here: When compulsive thinking stops, Tolle says, actually, now and then, thoughts will still come along, but they will be new, original, and far more creative than anything that has come along before. This sounds good. My only question then is why, if Tolle has reached this state, he recycles the same thoughts again and again and again, and never does anything in the least bit creative. Are we to conclude that sitting around telling others that they're deluded and should be more like one's own enlightened self is the apex of human creativity?

Now, what I wanted to say: I wanted to apologise to someone who will probably never read this. Years ago, when I first read The Power of Now, I came across Tolle's response to the idea that one must first love oneself to be able to love others. His response: "Why do you have to love yourself? Why can't you just be yourself?" At the time, this made sense to me, despite a kind of austerity.

Years later, in the comments section of someone’s blog, someone commented to the effect, “Yes!! Why can’t people see this? You have to love yourself first before you can love anyone else. It’s so important.”

For some reason, I parrotted, in response to this, Tolle’s thoughts on the matter as if they were my own, and looking back, I am deeply ashamed of this. I apologise to the unknown person, and I wish them all the best in loving themselves (that sounds plural, doesn’t it?) and others.

scott cummingI_ArtMan # Thursday, January 24, 2013 4:48:40 AM

i never understood what they mean when they say you have to love yourself. i have always loved myself. i thought that was considered by intelligent people to be narcissistic.
and when i have loved another it has always been totally, having nothing to do with my loving myself. maybe i am wrong. love is beautiful but it never lasts. that makes it almost as deleterious as heroin. let me concentrate on what i think is important for me. now i am a narcissist again, selfishly focusing on what makes me happy.
then the buddhists and hindus go... make others happy, that's the thing. good karma.
now, all i want to do is simplify.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Thursday, January 24, 2013 8:09:15 AM

I don't understand anything. I don't know what love is. I want the Buddhists and Hindus and all the rest to get out of my head.

Sorry. I think I'm having a nervous breakdown.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Thursday, January 24, 2013 9:20:09 AM

Inside my beautiful mind it is like this now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p30VTY_pGho

The outside world cannot touch me. Not while the flowers are waltzing.

Unregistered user # Thursday, January 24, 2013 10:23:40 AM

Troubled Joe writes: I'm Troubled Joe again, in fact, the Spanish writer and lurker J.S. who would like to comment more often, but always gets lost in the labyrinths of English. In your story "A Cup of Tea" you say to yourself, after reading a passage of "The Tibetan Book of the Dead": "Let not these impersonal systems near me when I die (...) Let my death be personal and private". I relate this somehow to your last post: "I don't understand anything. I don't know what love is. I want the Buddhists and Hindus and all the rest to get out of my head". I agree entirely. Most of the systems, everything systematic, in my opinion, suffocates creativity. I wrote a novel, if you excuse the publicity, where I especulate with the fantastic hypotesis that a demiurgic God discovered us "thanks" to the blast of the atomic bombs. Appalled by our History, He attemps to rescue the victims of Hiroshima and take them temporarily to a Hotel, while He tries to devise a way to send them to a Hereafter of His own making. Meanwhile, the young hero happens to discover one of these survivors in a room of the hotel, and then, spontaneously, in what I call a "selfless act of perfect kindness", tries to confort her, a girl, just by caressing her hair. This act, however, results in the burning of his hands and drives him to more and more "acts of perfect kindness", culminating in his self-destruction. Sometimes I think that "spirituality" could be reduced to something as simple as that (without the self-destruction, of course), that is, to the regular practice of a type of spontaneous and selfless kindness, empathy and generosity. You, for example, are being selflessly kind to us just by offering so many glimpses of your aesthetics and your worldview. In a way, you are "enlightening" us, in a very broad sense, just by letting us know Anette Funicello, Kodagain, an so on. I call that a system-free "spirituality", as I call "spirituality" to every action designed to make easier or richer other people's life: say "thanks", for example, give way to other drivers o help somebody with her carrier bags. I really believe that the sum of these acts contributes to improve, in a subliminal way, the global so called "karma".

scott cummingI_ArtMan # Thursday, January 24, 2013 10:32:01 AM

thank you for the link. i have been an avid appreciator of the beauty of ballet. when i was 16 i spent many evenings drawing at the ballet school of edith royal in winter park florida. so this little detour in the middle of the night was a pleasure. a marvelous synchronicity was taking place. i was watching "midnight in paris" on television, filling up a midnight bath and i decided to check in to opera. where would we be without memories?
one thing i could never reconcile is why beauty, why art, why writing? it's so mysterious how we go through life absorbing and regurgitating.

anyway, please pull yourself together and get on with it. nervous breakdown or not. it's all real. it's all meaningful. life is brief some say (not me. i say life is long), let's just do our part according to our destiny and gifts.

dropping out of opera where you and a few others set the bar is... how can i say... not meeting the challenge of modern realities. who knows where all the material of blogs (hate that word, journaling is more appropriate.)will end up in posterity. the worst will be lost but the best will be signs of the minds of our time. here there are no containers, no end user, no formalities; so we can just think together.
watch this movie if you get a chance. it's really very interesting.
"midnight in paris"

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Thursday, January 24, 2013 11:14:45 AM

Thank you, TJ/JS and SC.

I can't write at length now, because I'm at 'the office'.

Damn, you're not making it easy for me to end this blog.

But I must. I have said I will, and I must be a person of my word, even though Epictetus would not approve.

More later...

Unregistered user # Thursday, January 24, 2013 12:16:01 PM

Anonymous writes: All the lurkers are un-lurking to make you change your mind... We are really a pain in the ass :)

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Thursday, January 24, 2013 12:32:32 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp_H12eYTu8

Etc.

Ta.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Thursday, January 24, 2013 2:22:40 PM

Last year I bought and started reading Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget. It seems I lost it in Brighton, at the end of September. I have now bought another copy of it. This is from the introduction:

You have to find a way to be yourself before you can share yourself... This book is not antitechnology in any sense. It is prohuman.

Well, I'll try and reply to comments at greater length when I get home/get a bit of time.

Thanks.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Thursday, January 24, 2013 8:24:49 PM

Originally posted by anonymous:

My feelings about it so far are - well, you'll see.

I look forward to it.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Thursday, January 24, 2013 8:49:18 PM

Originally posted by anonymous:

Troubled Joe writes:
I agree entirely.

Most of the systems, everything systematic, in my opinion, suffocates creativity.

I am reminded of part of this essay (which I recommend):

http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=G66Ay4oJRkkC&pg=PA100&lpg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

In particular, these lines, among many others, struck me:

I read a little, many years ago, of the writings of C.G. Jung and Sigmund Freud but soon lost interest. I found the notion of an unconscious mind required of me the same sort of belief that I had formerly, as a church-going young person, been expected to place in angels and demons and the like. And no theoretical account of the personality has ever seemed to me as convincing as the demonstrations offered in fiction of even average quality of the infinite variability of humankind.

While I don't feel that the unconscious mind requires belief from me (it seems as much a part of life as, say, my legs), I also would like to say that I place more credence in the infinite variability of humans than in their apparently obsessive need to try and limit that variability.

Must eat now. Will try and write more later.

Unregistered user # Friday, January 25, 2013 8:20:54 AM

JS writes: Thanks for the link and the essay. It seems very insighful. I agree with your conclusion. While I like the concept, I think the idea of a collective unconscious has been trivialized to the the point of making it seem as a kind of mental dump.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Friday, January 25, 2013 9:41:29 AM

Hello JS.

Not had breakfast yet.

I just wanted to note that I'm not sure I will have the chance to adequately respond to all comments before Tuesday, when I intend to disable comments, but I'll do my best.

Thanks to everyone in the meantime.

More soon, probably...

Unregistered user # Friday, January 25, 2013 9:55:28 AM

JS writes: Quentin Please feel free not to respond to my comment. I won't take any offence at all :) You've been kind enough by providing the link and the reading recommendation. Even if you close your blog, we'll still be able to re read everything you invested in it.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Friday, January 25, 2013 10:20:50 AM

Thank you JS. I will try to respond a little, however, before Tuesday.

In the meantime, a 'word from our sponsor'. Well, not exactly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIwikI7IVYs

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Friday, January 25, 2013 12:53:40 PM

Also, I like the top comment under this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=U1Nqrh7iKp0&feature=fvwp

From someone called Kreska Niebieska:

You know what? I'd hugely prefer chubby Freddie Mercury over dead Freddie Mercury.

I love that she's alive and well, creating and singing, and I won't be stealing her music, I'll buy it. As for her weight - which is normal for a woman at 54 - it's her own f** business. She shines.

Unregistered user # Saturday, January 26, 2013 1:37:20 AM

Some Bloke writes: Get out! Get out while you still can! You are right to recognise some monstrous shadowy force that has not your best interests in it's dark heart! A stand must be made, however futile! No smiley face will not follow, this is not ironic hyperbole! On a lighter note, have you finished The Sex Life Of Worms with which you started this blog? I genuinely believe the world needs this book! I know I do. A Chomu edition would be a (strange) dream come true!

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Saturday, January 26, 2013 10:53:57 AM

Hello Some Bloke. If only you knew how many handwritten pages of The Sex Life of Worms are lying about somewhere... somewhere... I think (I'm not quite sure) I went into thousands of pages. I am actually having major pangs of despair to do with my writing, and wondering if (doubting) I'll ever find time to finish the many things I've started. The below are all unpublished, all novel length (all by me, of course); some of them are finished in first draft, some of them are at least halfway through, and some of them are more than 200,000 words long:

The Lovers
The Hideous Child
Susuki
Domesday Afternoon (Volume I: Summerhill)
The Sex Life of Worms

Other started-and-not-finished things:

The Antiquarian
Countless shorter pieces.

It's very, very hard when the world is demanding you do absolutely everything but work on your writing. If I may allow myself to indulge in a slight feeling of woe, my work sells abysmally poorly and I've never had a particular champion of my work in the way that some writers have. On occasion, one or two people seem to have got the wild idea that I am something akin to a puffed up, pampered celebrity, but I think it must be clear to the people who examine my tax returns, the doctors at the local health centre, anyone who observes me walking down the street in South East London among the nail parlours and fried chicken shops, that I'm just some bloke (I wrote that without thinking) clinging to life by his fingernails and wondering why.

But, on a lighter note, Defeated Dogs comes out from Eibonvale Press soon, and I hope it will provide some consolation for myself and one or two other people on this doomed planet (if that's not hoping too much). Also (fingers crossed) there should be another surprise announcement regarding my writing soon (it was surprising to me). Although I don't know where I'll announce it now???? On Twitter or something. Hmmm.

Thanks for writing and indulging me.

I will address other comments soon.

Sorry.

Etc.

Peter A Leonardpeedeel # Saturday, January 26, 2013 3:39:05 PM

Ah, sure, I'll miss you Quentin, your acerbic wit and incomparable, manic commentary on life the universe and everything!!

On the plus side it'll give you more time for your "serious" writing - which is great for us all!

Take care.

Best of luck.

Peter

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Saturday, January 26, 2013 10:21:56 PM

Originally posted by anonymous:

I wrote a novel, if you excuse the publicity, where I especulate with the fantastic hypotesis that a demiurgic God discovered us "thanks" to the blast of the atomic bombs. Appalled by our History, He attemps to rescue the victims of Hiroshima and take them temporarily to a Hotel, while He tries to devise a way to send them to a Hereafter of His own making.

It's an interesting premise. What's the title, if I may ask?

Originally posted by anonymous:

Sometimes I think that "spirituality" could be reduced to something as simple as that (without the self-destruction, of course), that is, to the regular practice of a type of spontaneous and selfless kindness, empathy and generosity.

Sometimes the levels of antagonism in and between human societies seem incomprehensible. Occasionally in London, I will find people - even in small, seemingly trivial ways - acting towards strangers in a kind and benevolent fashion, and these days, I always find even very small things disproportionately (or some might think them disproportionate) hopeful. And I think, wouldn't it be so much more pleasant, productive and so on, if such benevolence and co-operation could be made universal.

Originally posted by I_ArtMan:

anyway, please pull yourself together and get on with it. nervous breakdown or not. it's all real. it's all meaningful. life is brief some say (not me. i say life is long), let's just do our part according to our destiny and gifts.

dropping out of opera where you and a few others set the bar is... how can i say... not meeting the challenge of modern realities. who knows where all the material of blogs (hate that word, journaling is more appropriate.)will end up in posterity. the worst will be lost but the best will be signs of the minds of our time.

Well, this has given me something to think about; I have paused, and I very much appreciate the vote of confidence, but it looks like I'm going to go ahead.

There are a number of things to be said here. I mean, butterfly-effect aside, I don't consider my blog to be, as it were, 'writing'. It is in a sense. I suppose it's like a very long series of public e-mails, and I do try to give even e-mails something of the attention that I used to give letters when I wrote them (occasionally I still do). And I used to try and give letters something of the attention that I give 'writing'.

But I only started this blog experimentally (about eight years ago, I think), and I suppose I viewed it as a kind of scrap-book. In other words, I definitely did not have posterity in mind. Ephemeral was the name of the game, as far as I was concerned. As an experiment, it has certainly been very interesting, and has had some very particular and meaningful repercussions for my life... Well, one thing the experiment has highlighted is a question more than anything else, and that is, do we really want, as the Bible has it, for the very hairs on our heads to be numbered? And, if so, do we trust the internet as the custodian of such information?

We may distrust it because it knows too much. We may also distrust it because it is very vulnerable to information loss.

Recently, someone very kindly sent me a book called Wonderful Nests, which appears to be 126 years old. I wonder what will survive of the digital content currently being produced after another 126 years have elapsed, how well written it will be, how much it will have to offer the inhabitants of that future world, if there are any then able to read.

I can't help feeling that the current derision being heaped upon physical books, and, concomitantly, upon care taken in writing style, in editorship and in scholarship, is very short-sighted.

Anyway, first of all, my bringing this journal to a close is not really a big deal, however much I might even wish it to be. Secondly, to the extent that it is any kind of a deal, big or small, I really do not intend it as merely some kind of negative withdrawal or gesture of defeat.

On the contrary, if there is a statement, then it is clearly this: there is a world beyond the internet, and there must remain to be a world beyond the internet. If we wish for the world beyond the internet to continue in any healthy manner, we must invest in it. I don't just mean in a financial sense, though that's important too, in a world that runs on money - I also mean the investment of time, meaning, care, and so on.

And part of the evaluation of things that comes with paying attention (the paying attention that is necessary for an investment of time, meaning, care and so on), is - I think - being prepared to bring things to an end.

In fact, being able to end things - practising endings, even, to cultivate this ability - is surely an advantage in creating any meaningful life.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Saturday, January 26, 2013 10:26:09 PM

Originally posted by peedeel:

Ah, sure, I'll miss you Quentin, your acerbic wit and incomparable, manic commentary on life the universe and everything!!On the plus side it'll give you more time for your "serious" writing - which is great for us all!

I keep clicking 'post' instead of 'quote'. Anyway: many thanks for your very gracious words.

I'm beginning to feel a little like Dorothy, about to embark in a flight by hot-air balloon.

I waver, but I think I must have the strength of my conviction on this one.

scott cummingI_ArtMan # Sunday, January 27, 2013 12:44:06 AM

Originally posted by quentinscrisp:

there is a world beyond the internet, and there must remain to be a world beyond the internet. If we wish for the world beyond the internet to continue in any healthy manner, we must invest in it.

now that makes sense to me...

recent impressions of the real and concrete world have caused me some consternation. for example, my last stop at a starbucks where everyone was bowed over their laptops and smartphones, hardly even looking up when a new person came into the room. such a disinterest in flesh and blood shocked me. especially since i was lucky enough to be part of the bohemian beat generation where people gathered in smoky rooms and talked face to face. or you would see someone you wanted to know, so you went over and introduced yourself, sometimes becoming very good friends. i miss that world. when i was in seattle, it was gone. it's gone in the village... it's even gone in san francisco. i can't find a single place in los angeles where people gather to exchange ideas and get to know each other.

Unregistered user # Sunday, January 27, 2013 10:51:44 AM

Anonymous writes: "It's an interesting premise. What's the title, if I may ask?" I'm glad you like the premise. It's a very sui generis "Young Adult" book written in Catalan. The title is "La nit dels ocells transparents" or "The Night of Transparent Birds". http://www.amazon.co.uk/nit-dels-ocells-transparents/dp/8448931173/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359283525&sr=1-1 I hope you publish very soon your opus magnus "Doomsday Afternoon"!

Unregistered user # Sunday, January 27, 2013 10:54:47 AM

JS writes: Sorry. I repost it in a more legible and not anonymous form: "It's an interesting premise. What's the title, if I may ask?" I'm glad you like the premise. It's a very sui generis "Young Adult" book written in Catalan. The title is "La nit dels ocells transparents" or "The Night of Transparent Birds". http://www.amazon.co.uk/nit-dels-ocells-transparents/dp/8448931173/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359283525&sr=1-1 I hope you publish very soon your opus magnus "Doomsday Afternoon"!

Unregistered user # Sunday, January 27, 2013 10:56:42 AM

JS writes: I give up :(

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Sunday, January 27, 2013 11:48:52 AM

Originally posted by anonymous:

JS writes:

I give up

I tried putting some HTML code into your comment, but that didn't work, either. Sorry. The Night of Transparent Birds is a great title.

Originally posted by I_ArtMan:

recent impressions of the real and concrete world have caused me some consternation. for example, my last stop at a starbucks where everyone was bowed over their laptops and smartphones, hardly even looking up when a new person came into the room. such a disinterest in flesh and blood shocked me.

Yes, this seems to be happening everywhere.

Here's a girl trying to make a go of it, I think, somewhere in New York:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4CaGDZjtK8

Someone called Debz Suckz has commented:

people these days are weird they just STAND there

I'm not sure it's related to the Internet, but I have heard reports of this same phenomenon across the globe. Small thing (possibly), but - what's happening? Is this a trend? If so, why?

It could, of course, be related to the internet.

In his intro to You Are Not a Gadget, Lanier writes of an appearance he made at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas:

After I took the stage, the first thing I said... was that it would be a worthy experiment for the audience to not tweet or blog while I was talking. Not out of respect for me, I explained, but out of respect for themselves. If something I said was memorable enough to be worthy of a tweet or blog later on - even if it was to register violent disagreement - then that meant what I said would have had the time to be weighed, judged, and filtered by someone's brain.

He's obviously talking about a phenomenon that could be connected to the one visible at the Kitty Pryde gig.

He also reports, encouragingly, that after he said all this, "To my pleasant surprise, they applauded!"

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Sunday, January 27, 2013 2:00:34 PM

The Demon in the Afternoon is also a good title. Nice cover, too.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Sunday, January 27, 2013 2:01:34 PM

Just so people know - I still haven't filled in my tax return and am starting to panic. I want to avoid a fine, so, will probably have to concentrate on that in the next few days. Will still try and respond to comments if possible.

Unregistered user # Monday, January 28, 2013 9:34:09 AM

JS writes: The Demon in the Afternoon is also a good title. Nice cover, too. Thank you! I have also written "The Sea of Calm" and "The Well Behind the Door". Perhaps Chômu Press would be interested in publishing foreign authors...? :) Good luck with the ordeal of the tax return.

Unregistered user # Monday, January 28, 2013 11:31:31 PM

Ross writes: To be brief, as I don't have much time to spend in front of a computer due to an ailing back and the constant need for early nights. I have gained a great deal of valuable, enriching and worthwhile insight from this blog. Not to mention the many book recommendations, which I am still ploughing my way through. Would you believe your recommendations have their own pile on my bookshelf? And that they are still being added to as much as dipped into, with delight. Alas, gone is my hope that you will finish your thoughts on the latter 5 books here: http://my.opera.com/quentinscrisp/blog/2012/11/19/12-books-everyone-should-read-before-the-world-explodes-in-a-mass-of-flames I sincerely hope that you find some quietude away from this blightful algorithm that is the internet. Your quest seems completely reasonable and noble. And I understand that it must be a severance rather than any kind of tapering. Sadly for us, your insight, eloquence and erudition will be sorely missed. One plus side though is that not coming on here as often will greatly reduce my internet usage aswell, though I have nothing of value to achieve, such are my present circumstances. I can only hope this means that you will have more meaningful time to spend on your fiction and I personally look forward to its publication more than any other contemporary writers work, by a long stretch. Best of luck, Ross

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Tuesday, January 29, 2013 12:46:49 AM

Originally posted by anonymous:

The Demon in the Afternoon is also a good title. Nice cover, too.

Thank you! I have also written "The Sea of Calm" and "The Well Behind the Door".

Perhaps Chômu Press would be interested in publishing foreign authors...?

There'll probably be a bit of a hiatus with Chomu while we try and sort a few internal things out (the submissions system being one of them), but when we're open to submissions again, we'll definitely be interested in work from outside the Anglosphere, though, of course, in English translation.

Originally posted by anonymous:

Good luck with the ordeal of the tax return.

Thank you. I found a very useful piece of paper, yesterday, that I had been searching for, so I think I'm saved.

Originally posted by anonymous:

To be brief, as I don't have much time to spend in front of a computer due to an ailing back and the constant need for early nights.

My sympathies. I have suffered intermittently with back pains, and they can be hellish.

Originally posted by anonymous:

Not to mention the many book recommendations, which I am still ploughing my way through. Would you believe your recommendations have their own pile on my bookshelf?

I will have to believe it. I hope that my recommendations so far have proved worthwhile.

Originally posted by anonymous:

Alas, gone is my hope that you will finish your thoughts on the latter 5 books here: http://my.opera.com/quentinscrisp/blog/2012/11/19/12-books-everyone-should-read-before-the-world-explodes-in-a-mass-of-flames

I was actually thinking to myself, "Hmmm, promising not to post another entry doesn't preclude finishing old ones", but, actually (sadly?), I realised I would have to desist, as I suspect that if I write more on an old post it becomes the latest post again, at the head of the blog, which wouldn't do. Maybe it doesn't do that, but... I think I probably have settled it in my mind to leave things now, after the deadline.

Originally posted by anonymous:

I sincerely hope that you find some quietude away from this blightful algorithm that is the internet. Your quest seems completely reasonable and noble. And I understand that it must be a severance rather than any kind of tapering. Sadly for us, your insight, eloquence and erudition will be sorely missed.
One plus side though is that not coming on here as often will greatly reduce my internet usage aswell, though I have nothing of value to achieve, such are my present circumstances.

I can only hope this means that you will have more meaningful time to spend on your fiction and I personally look forward to its publication more than any other contemporary writers work, by a long stretch.

Best of luck,
Ross

Thank you for all of this.

I hope that the convinction I have mustered to end something will also translate into the conviction to begin other things.

I must get to bed now, but... (continued in separate comment)

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Tuesday, January 29, 2013 12:57:18 AM

I'll disable comments at 2.00pm tomorrow (Tuesday), Greenwich Mean Time. I realise it might seem a bit exclusionary (?) to stop people commenting, but, I'm afraid, if there were comments I'd be unable to resist responding at some point. I just seem to be like that. So, I will be formalising the end of the blog by placing a metaphorical glass bell over it.

I did have some kind of 'in conclusion' thoughts in mind in the last few days, but it seems unlikely now that I'll have time for them.

I might try tomorrow, in the morning.

If I don't get another chance to say it, many thanks to all those who have read, and all those who have commented, even the trolls, the last of whom I will no doubt think fondly of on my death-bed, or on hallucinogens.

My e-mail address will be visible here between 1.30pm and 2.00pm, if I am organised enough to ensure this, tomorrow, before the end, in case anyone wishes to take a last chance to get in touch.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Tuesday, January 29, 2013 11:48:00 AM

Well, I suppose it's time for a few valedictory remarks, though I'm not sure I'm up to the task.

I'll do my best.

Last night I had a long conversation with a friend, which brought many issues to the surface for me, to do with poverty/wealth, art, work, the survival of the human race, and so on.

One thing touched upon is the anxiety felt by many people of working class extraction about the great task of earning money, an anxiety (we agreed, recounting real life examples I won't recount here), is not shared so much by the middle classes, because if they are born into their privilege, they take it for granted. In some sense, this consciousness has been hanging round my head for a long time. This is only a very general statement, but I think there is a kind of hypocrisy peculiar to the middle classes, to do with a horror of what people with less money than themselves will do to make money.

Part of my feelings of antipathy towards piracy (expressed on my blog recently), stem from a feeling that much piracy now is perpetrated by people who have no need of it - in other words, by the middle classes.

I suppose that doesn't cover the whole of the phenomenon, but I thought I'd give some explanation as to why I can express myself virulently (I probably mean 'vehemently', but with added bitterness) on the subject.

While writing about piracy in the comments section of the post mentioned, I said that writing/art has long been seen as a kind of Wild West, which is perhaps why some people resent anti-piracy statements, as anti-piracy may seem like a joyless attempt to bring law to the frontier.

A) See above regarding working and middle classes
B) Another way of looking at art (and another possible explanation for why people resent anti-piracy) is that art is, essentially, play

Someone very kindly sent me this book recently:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2086132.What_it_Is

Lynda Barry puts foward exactly this idea - that art is play.

Perhaps people resent the fact that those who play very publicly (pop stars, etc.) want to charge people to join in the game.

Here's a link to Ms Barry talking about art, etc:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yztVi3qJc4

I don't know if it's at that link, but somewhere she says that we all know that if a child is not allowed to play, ever, he or she will actually go insane.

Later the same day (after watching that and some other Lynda Barry clips), I noticed a poster on a bus shelter. It was for this:

http://www.righttoplay.com/International/Pages/Home.aspx

The UN recognizes play as the right of every child. Play is not a luxury; it is a tool for education and health. It can bring entire communities together and inspire every individual. A game of football can teach children about tolerance and peace, a game of tag can teach about malaria. Play helps teach important life lessons and develop skills like co-operation, leadership and teamwork. Play provides a retreat from everyday hardships and brings joy and laughter, allowing kids to be kids.

Ms Barry asks why, if play is so important, do we deny it to adults (in the form of art)?

I very much agree with the implied sentiments: art, in its broadest sense, can bring a life alive in a way that other things cannot. Surely this is important?

I wouldn't want to deny this to anyone. At the same time, equality - or perceived attempts at equality - can be a way of devaluing things.

Back in 2000/2001, I taught English in Taiwan, in an American/Taiwanese private cram school that was basically the McDonalds of English teaching. Very early on, I was given the system, to study, for assessing a pupil in an oral examination. I studied it carefully, made sure I understood it, then gave the pupils in my first class their oral examinations. I passed on the marks I had given them to my Taiwanese teaching assistant. He saw my marks and a look of horror came across his face. The marks were all things like 4/20, 5/20 and so on. He took me aside and spoke to me.

"We don't give marks this low," he said.

"Well, I used the system, those are the actual results of the tests."

"Yes, I know, but we bump them up a bit, to keep the children and parents happy."

I sighed, but could see that my job would depend on this, so I added an equal number to each score (perhaps ten).

I had grown up in an education system (British) where nobody ever gets full marks. The system here seemed meaningless to me. How could you educate the children if you were unwilling to admit that they needed educating?

In the classroom, a misguided idea of equality prevents effective education.

However, I do believe in the spirit of equality, so what has gone wrong? This is my guess: that people believe a number is the true measure of a person's worth, rather than just their score on a test.

I find myself in the interesting position in life of being 'a poacher turned gamekeeper'. That is, after many years of being a resentful author, determined to tear down the walls of the citadel of publishing, I have begun work as an editor, and begin to see that the citadel has a lot going for it. There is, in truth, a vast amount that is bad, but "old is bad and new is good" is as vacuous as "new is bad and old is good". I would like us to preserve what is worth preserving, which is also perhaps more than people realise, taking it for granted as they often do.

Lynda Barry tells us a very important story - how children are discouraged early on from having access to their natural creativity, which turns them into miserable and lifeless adults.

There's also another story to tell: how children without challenges can stagnate in resentment, wishing they could do better than they have allowed themselves to. There needs - I believe - to be aspiration as well as affirmation.

Looking back on the path I have taken in writing, I see that I owe a great debt to all the editors and publishers who have rejected me, the reviewers who have criticised me, and so on. Because of them, though I have fallen into pits of despair, I have also aspired to climb out of those pits. At this moment in time, this is the way I mean to continue, for as long as I can.

I hope that the current changes in the world will prove to be ultimately creative, rather than what I fear - that they will throw us in a pit and deprive us of the aspiration to climb out of it again.

Whatever way they go, as Lovelock asserts in the following video, the changes look like being unimaginably vast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBUvZDSY2D0

I'm not sure what to say about the prospect of a 6 billion or more reduction in human population, except, good luck!!! I hope I manage to get through somehow, too.

scott cummingI_ArtMan # Tuesday, January 29, 2013 12:32:47 PM

Originally posted by quentinscrisp:

Ms Barry asks why, if play is so important, do we deny it to adults (in the form of art)?

that's easy. those who sell their birthright, to be originals, in their truth they destroy their possibilities. then there is nothing left to feel except envy. from then on their aim is to destroy the only forces which transform and uplift being itself.
it's a sad truth about humans. their time is limited. once they give up on themselves they don't want any freedom for anyone else.
we were not born on this earth to suffer needlessly. but that is their dogma. sleeping people rule the world.

Quentin S Crispquentinscrisp # Tuesday, January 29, 2013 1:25:17 PM

Originally posted by I_ArtMan: