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an act of intellectual disburdenment

2023-05-27

6 minute read

I'm at my desk, I'm writing in the weekend. The world is full of wonder, I see opportunity in every corner. I'm seeing signs. Is this the high before a crash? Why does food taste better, music sound better? I got paid today for the first time in 10 months (or maybe last night, I didn't check). I didn't expect to be paid for another few weeks. The world is on my side.

posted by @laurabreadkitten pixelated photo of hands cupping water, in water. White arial bold text over the top reads "magic is real But it is hard to explain"

Backlog

back to today

I had a quiet night in last night, watched some Severance and ate pizza. This morning I went to S's house to watch the Argentinian under 20 futbol team destroy NZ 5 - 0. Then we got coffee and donuts. On the way home I picked up some sewing supplies.

sewing supplies

My jacket sleeves are too long and the cost of a tailor might be around $80. The jacket only cost $120, I'm not paying $80 to take the sleeves up. I'm going to do it myself, and in doing say gain a world of experience in repairing and altering my clothes, skills I am proud to both have a to develop further. Am I nervous? yes. It involves cutting the lining out and also removing the buttons, before sewing it all back into the adjusted sleeve. The buttons will be the hardest part, but I'm sure with focus and patience I can do it.

against interpretation

Along with a Jaimie Oliver vegetarian recipe book I also got a book of essays out from the library. Essays by no other than one of my favourites, Susan Sontag. I read the titular essay today.

The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.

I'm into it, it helps me to develop ideas I've had about interpretation of work and it inspires me to move more into criticism, something I've wanted to do for a while but have felt hampered by my own ability to write (not to mention percieve). There's another great quote from the intro to the book:

Before I wrote the essays I did not believe many of the ideas espoused in them; when I wrote them, I believed what I wrote; subsequently, I have come to disbelieve some of these same ideas again - but from a new perspective, one that incorporates and is nourished by what is true in the argument of the essays. Writing criticism has proved to be an act of intellectual disburdenment as much as of intellectual self-expression. (emphasis my own)

what else

I'm reading this good article - Should Artists Shop or Stop Shopping? - Sheila Heti writing about Sara Cwynar

Buying keeps me here, in a certain state, a state of waiting (for the thing to arrive), a state of limbo (between my life as it is now, and the life I imagine I will live once I have it), a state of unreality, of wishful thinking, of magical thinking (that my life will be different once it arrives), a state of disappointment (when the thing I bought is absorbed into my life like everything else, and does not distinguish itself as new), a state of need (to buy the next thing that will lift me out of this here.) But what is this place I am in, and trying to escape? What is this here, but shopping? My home, and the computer on which I write, and the phone in my pocket, everything around me—has become a shopping mall. I am here in a shopping mall and I can’t get out. I can only get out if I stop buying things.

I'm feeling far more capable of writing again, here in my room.

I've got a load of exciting tabs open again, because I don't use Arc on my work computer so they never get archived. I do miss Arc though, it's a great browser. Command + Shift + C to copy URLs is chef's kiss exquisite. I want to make a browser plugin to do the same. I also want to make a browser plugin to help me develop Optimizely changes.

listening to

Wood ft. Yu Su - from Meeting with a Judas Tree by Duval Timothy
I've also got to link the track I heard the above track on: A Fragile Correspondence (19/5/23) - Clyde Built Radio

questions