01

(this is me, this time, the things in italics from this
anonymous commenter i have somewhere else.
written some time in april.
for references to "Oskar", please see and hopefully read
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer)

What books do you read? Are you into literature?

I am not very sure how to answer that first question. Do you mean, genres? I was never good with genres. (I have filled the "Genre" column of my iTunes list with the year the song or album was released.) How do people stick to genres, confine themselves to such a tiny space when there is still such a vast area of whatever to be acquainted with?

I could give you a list of the books I have read. I would be more than happy, you sound interested and that is not very common anymore. A funny story: on the second day of summer class, I was re-reading one of the conversations in my folder while waiting for class to start. "Reading is considered an act of self-improvement. Work. Homework. Probably something you are not smart enough to do and enjoy. If just the act of reading were more present," I read, a line from Jonathan; and right after that I looked up to find my teacher standing nearby and he said, "What is that? Why are you reading, are you studying?"

That has happened before, and when I say "I'm just reading because I want to," I get a weird look.

But, that list would be nowhere near in showing all that has influenced my writing and has inspired me to do so. (Assuming that the question was posed for that reason.) All I can say about the books I read is that it always finishes by taking something from me in exchange for what it gave. It's that slightly breathless feeling when you finish a book, when you turn the rest of the blank pages (or advertisments of the author / publisher, depending on the book. My personal preference would be the blank pages.) to the back cover, close it, turn it over to the front, and think about the whole book you've just digested while staring blankly at the cover.

My The Book is Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated." I will leave you with the excerpt I posted a while back, because any attempt to describe or worship this masterpiece will not even come close to what it is worth. Jonathan Safran Foer breaks hearts beyond our own repair (and then promptly does just that) for a living.

Novels, short stories, poetry, journals, philosophy, news and magazine articles. I read everything. If you're interested, there are some very awesome places online...

In English class, my very fab English teacher taught us, according to the syllabus, that prose appealed to the mind, and poetry to the heart. I didn't exactly agree because it was such a defined line separating the two. The writings I read easily fall in both categories.

An explanation for inspiration would be incredibly futile. The word "inspiration" comes from "inspirare", Latin, meaning "to be breathed into". How would one explain what keeps her breathing, feeling, seeing, being? Forget scientific analysis (something amazing just happened: as I wrote the phrase before this parentheses, Natasha Bedingfield sang "questions of science, science in progress, do not speak as loud as my heart" through my speakers. I live for moments such as these, really.) of any sort, Science can not explain how one lives on through others after death, how would one explain what drives her to creation, everything we do is creation, reading a book is creation, Picasso said "Everything you can image is real", destruction is creation, how would one explain how an apple rolling onto the road inspired the ending to a story, and how would one explain how even something that does not exist is inspiration? "Everything you can imagine is real."

You should be a writer.

Thank you for that. I have been thinking a lot about that lately, because these years are definitely not passing by any slower. I need to decide, because it may or may not make a dent in my parents' decision on where to go for my mother's next assignment (which is late next year). I thought I had already narrowed down my choices to the different writing courses, but the thought of going into serious art just keeps knocking on my skull at regular intervals to make sure its presence is not forgotten. And Hugh Jackman on Inside the Actor's Studio just backed that up lately, describing the arts school where he took his course in theatre. This is really not fair.

Help, anyone? Writing is only thrilling when I can come up with something. I am constantly distracted by the thought of having a dead-end desk writing job, slumped in an old chair, staring at the computer screen, thinking of how to start an obituary; half-hoping to be able to surprise myself and the public with a haiku so amazing it will land me in a publisher-sponsored white empty apartment with agents waiting for me to write my next masterpiece.

Me and Art (this would include photography) would have the same situation, except imagine my grubby basement-turned-living-quarters, newspaper spread on the floor half-coated with every single shade of every color of paint, art paraphernalia everywhere, paper paint glue pencils crayons markers scissors pens gift-wrapping paper more and more and more paper canvas several easels several tables lyrics hastily written on paper dried flower petals cameras empty film canisters patterns on walls photographs on walls drawings on walls ... ... With me in one corner, face lit up by the dim glow of a computer screen, complaining about my shitty pseudo manqué-artist life into this very journal.

Oskar, how about something that will manifest our thoughts when we fail to do so ourselves? Here is a blank white wall, here is a clean sheet of white paper. Take what's in my mind and paste it there, my hands don't do enough of a good job.

Maybe that's too much, though. What if we had a machine that could transport us anywhere in the universe, at any time, Oskar? Something a la The Glass Elevator, except with really good ventilation. Inspiration is everywhere, and the very grand problem is, we aren't.