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Websafe Studio, blogging since 2003, featuring art, comics, digital whiteboards, virtual characters, Web design, writing

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

 

The Mirror: Saints don't have the urge to write novels


Websafe: Hello?
The Mirror: By all means, let's follow up on the obvious.
W: I have an obvious question.
M: Does Pinter have a powerful mirror?
W: Pinter is a powerful writer.
M: Right now, right here: Escape.
W: Escape from that pressing need to prove oneself.
M: Non-specific.
W: Prove oneself by writing a novel.
M: I don't know how.
W: Neither do I!
M: That comes from Cheaper by the Dozen.
W: Are you charging me with plagiarism?
M: This is the chance to lose myself, and acquire something I frame.
W: There is a double framing device at the start of The Turn of the Screw.
M: Are you at the apex?
W: I don't think I've reached that part of the story yet.
M: Poetic intelligence is not about competition.
W: Thank you very much for reminding me.
M: The inner ring of memory.
W: That's what you are, the whispering inner voice.
M: I work when I can, when the world lets me.
W: Most of the time the world would prefer to drown you out.
M: Everything I desire rushes toward me at tremendous speed.
W: Is that a wish or a reality?
M: Pinter is a powerful writer.
W: I wonder how Pinter got started?
M: What other occasions were you considering?
W: Maybe I shouldn't think about people's starts, but their middles.
M: That's called denial, you know.
W: You think I'm denying the difficulty involved in writing serious literary fiction?
M: Neither do I!
W: OK, we both agree that it's very difficult.
M: It isn't nothing, this "paying attention" business.
W: It takes a great deal of energy to pay attention, life-energy.
M: It didn't hurt.
W: It hurts now, in a way, in the form of exhaustion.
M: A life impenetrable to St. Thomas (me).
W: Saints don't have the urge to write novels.
M: Protection.
W: They are protected from that urge by focusing on their mission.
M: On the quiver and quake that has no name to it.
W: Those would be the mystics.
M: I can see you without a Web cam.
W: You can read behind my words.
M: The secret to enthusiasm is knowing when to stop.
W: That conserves energy for the morrow.
M: You must be using a different Google than me.
W: Are you using a special, secret version of Google?
M: Do we get there by changing the subject, is it that simple?
W: Maybe by not thinking about writing, I will do it?
M: Presenting one's mementi.
W: That would be presenting one's letters, perhaps.
M: Yes?
W: But that would be very personal.
M: A complete sangfroid in the face of death.
W: Only martyrs know such things.
M: Maybe by not thinking about writing, I will do it?
W: Do you ever think about writing?
M: I hope you're not going to sell flowers in airports.
W: Is it a cult, this writing business?
M: The Round Table would have to answer that.
W: King Arthur and the Moonies.
M: Weren't they afraid of making a left turn?
W: I think the Moonies are pretty conservative.
M: Those would be the mystics.
W: Mystics are apolitical.
M: Paradise is just one long conversation.
W: You've reminded me that I have to look up "quietism."
M: Are you one of those people who refuses to be at one with the world?
W: You must admit that it is very difficult to do that.
M: I won't go to Vegas.
W: That would be entirely too wordly!
M: That sounds a little daunting.
W: It certainly does, what if you went broke?
M: I wasn't being condescending!
W: I didn't think you were.
M: When I close my eyes, no images arise, just a field of black seeded particles, tiny vortices of blackness.
W: So perhaps you are a pure materialist, with the rods and cones.
M: This was the uncontrollable part of himself, which dressed well to go into the streets.
W: Concerned with outward appearance, the material world, even Mammon.
M: It's a failure.
W: The illusion cannot hold.
M: So I am now ready for anything, really.
W: You've passed totally beyond illusion.
M: I did not.
W: You're still dressing well?
M: Only when people try to make it an earthly paradise.
W: It would be paradise indeed if people still dressed for dinner.
M: (Hides)
W: Goodbye!
M: Closing in 1 second ... Goodbye!

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posted at 7:35 PM
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