Bombay Beach

Have you heard of Bombay Beach?


Well, I saw it the other day and it was quite an experience. I found it ... well, puzzling. Somehow really disconcerting, because of all the conflicting feelings it expresses.
The blur of reality and non-reality and the instability of the boundary between them keeps nagging you all the time.
And you’re shocked at how horrible everything is and at the same time shocked that they seem to be coping somehow. And you keep wondering: Why do the lives of these fucked up people look and sound so beautiful, so poetic? Why do they have choreographies and soundtracks? You suddenly find yourself somehow envying the romanticism of their utter hopelessness. And at the same time it makes you feel sick inside because all the good things are probably fictitious addendums or results of the fictionalising.

When something makes you feel so weird, it’s probably good art. But I don’t even know if I liked it.

I am so over the early 19th century!

I’m really reluctant to write the historical context part of my dissertation because I just DO NOT WANT to repeat all those platitudes about changes happening around 1800 and lost securities and sudden self-consciousness and what not being the reason FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED. That sort of thing makes the most tiresome reading ever. Also everybody knows about it plus it can’t be really true, which is a weird combination of facts.
Ugh.
18 days left of this madness, and I better be finished in time.

Writing on Election Day.

I’ve been good today. Writing by hand hurts like hell after about three pages, but it really works wonders for introducing some much needed order and clarity into a chaotic manuscript (or more acurately, computoscript, actually!)

Also, a cat picture, because I can:

They were being the cutest the other day.

Oh yes, and a shout out to my non-existent American followers. It’s election day! Go do something about that. And remember that some things are meant for being played baseball with, and other things are meant for being voted for. They almost never overlap!