“How well I would write,” wrote Calvino, “were I not here.”

The previous post originally had “But there are of course other KINDS OF SPEECH in which the speaker is reluctant to be present.” What followed, however, did not name kinds of speech, it named kinds of reluctance–that is, speakers’ motives. An unanticipated shift was made from impersonal forms to personal ones.

The previous post addresses a sort of abdication. A backing out of, or dispossesion. The verbal opposite of what one might call ownership. An attempt to abstract beyond oneself, an attempt to take an impersonal position. Not just an abdication then, also a sort of presumption. The concomitant so-called objective tone brings to mind so-called scientific writing. But there are of course other cases in which the speaker is reluctant to be present. Speakers who are at odds with their own objectification, for instance. The especially self-conscious. Speakers reluctant to assume a certain kind of authority–that is, the authorial kind.

An effect of avoiding the first person in these posts is a curiously detached tone. Neither A Man Named Me nor Jawbone, in the third person, has been sufficiently flexible. (Shrug.)

Links sometimes die. Like, to images. The expectation, or hope, is that when this happens, if it is left that way, it will make this blog look weathered, or organic–as in, given to decay. The visible appearance of a natural death. But something else often seems to be the case, and it is hard to resist making an obvious, and one suspects quick, fix.

Art

Art

Francesca: Have you ever tried blogging?

Wells: No… the idea of blogging seems really weird. I don’t know why writers do it. The idea of writing in a way that’s not careful seems kind of insane if you’re a fiction writer, or a long-form nonfiction writer. Maybe there’s something invigorating about it, but for me so much of the process is worrying about every word — just belching a bunch of stuff out there seems strange. Also the web is really weird. I don’t like the idea that stuff you write is just going to be on there, and people will be able to access it whenever, forever. A piece of writing should have its own little half-life and when people are no longer interested in reading or anthologizing, it should be forgotten.

–Wells Tower in Index Magazine

“the particular vanity of perceiving social life as a problem to be solved by the good will of individuals”

link

San Francisco [spaces] City #I’m Tired

Ramparts existed, in one form or another, from 1962 until 1975, but Mr. Richardson leaves no doubt that its finest years arrived in the late ’60s under the editorship of Warren Hinckle….

Mr. Hinckle embraced, editorially, a kind of controlled mayhem. He wore a black eye patch, a result of a childhood accident, and was piratical in other ways. He kept a pet capuchin monkey named Henry Luce in the Ramparts office. He frequently worked out of a North Beach bar called Cookie Picetti’s, and his drinking and stamina were legendary.

–NYT on “A Bomb in Every issue”

Someone at Mother Jones recently recounted an anecdote from that book involving Hinckle, Hunter S Thompson, a backpack full of drugs, and the capuchin monkey all making a trip to the veterinary emergency room.

A Man Named Me has also been wanting to get a look at Oran Canfield’s Long Past Stopping, wanted to catch his reading too (UPDATE, HE’S DOING TWO MORE NEXT WEEK), but you know, the soul, the company store. [INSERT TRUTH HERE: I've been taking vitamins again] Why am I curious? DO I NEED A REASON? Yes. OH, OKEY DOKEY I HAVE TWO–THE SELF-HELP BACKLASH IS NEAR AND DEAR TO A MAN NAMED ME’S HEART AND [ASIDE FROM BEING SELF-HELP GURU JACK CANFIELD"S SON] ORAN USED TO BE IN SF BANDS DIG THAT BODY UP IT’S ALIVE & MURDER MURDER, & SO YOU KNOW….shit fuck delete delete, here’s his vice magazine interview

And then there’s the new book about sf punk , I guess the editors put like 15? extra free chapters online. These days it’s, Forget waiting for a second edition–straight to digital! Plus it includes a peek at Jesse Michaels’ prose style (A Man Named Me has always wondered….) The Chronicle review of that book (bad reader, no link) took the “Isn’t it funny, being nostalgic for punk rock?”-angle, which Robert Christgau nailed thirteen years ago, when the Sex Pistols did their reunion tour; putting it precisely, he asked: What does it mean to be nostalgic for when you were young and had no future?

“Well Bob, I’ll tell you,” sd. Jawbone. “Thing about hopelessness is, despite being an absence, like a vacuum, it’s also relative… ever had orange juice after you brushed your teeth…..”

Let’s bring this back around, shall we?

Hey remember when journalistic standards were falling and we had paper?

“What is this some kind of joke?” said the doped up monkey to the writer.

recycling is good

bye now