If a tree falls in the woods, will it be framed?
Click, click, and click. Pen cap on, pen cap off. I have a hard time hearing the professor speaking at the podium. Passive mass facing the active individual. Fine, you can all go ahead and call it an author reading, but I know what’s really going on here. Belch out the info and the little birdies will swallow it down, only to vomit it back up again. A slightly different form, but consisting of the same properties. It starts to get pretty disgusting after six years of it and wow, I can’t help but notice what people are doing with their hands. I think it’s the shape of this room, and where the chairs are. I’ve always preferred circles, personally, and I hate that I actually love being here. Where else would the anti-academia academic belong, but in academia? The only place they are free to express and have someone care enough to argue. Ironic, kind of.
Still clicking my pen, and between technological issues and my complete and utter inability to turn off the voices in my head, I catch about every other sentence or less. Oh, that image of the old man was super chilling. The description really got to me, and awesome, now it’s metafiction! One of my faves. Should I write another metafiction story? Maybe the character doesn’t like what I’m writing, so he journeys through the strange world of fiction in search of his creator, entering different writing realities…one of structure and form, another of genre, of plot, of absolute chaos and creativity. He/she meets other characters of mine etc., until finally I decide to write myself into the story. So we can meet. That’s sort of dangerous, though. I’ll be pretty vulnerable as a character, being subject to the same rules that they are…I could get hurt, and revenge could be a bitch, but I think I owe them that much. He/she would probably want to ask me questions like “why am I here?” etc. He/She will ask why they suffer, and I’ll tell them, “for entertainment,” even if it’s a half-lie. He/she will point their finger at me and say, “You! You are the one that did this to me!” and point down at their ambiguous genitals. Me as a character will look at him/her in disgust and say, “No, no! Listen! It wasn’t me. I didn’t do that. I’ve been framed!”
“Framing is important to our understanding,” says the professor at the podium.
But is it? I hate framing. It’s so freaking expensive. The only reason my art pieces cost three-fourths of what they do is because of the framing. It does make the piece look better, but sometimes I feel like it’s a bit overrated. Maybe a little too much emphasis is placed on it? I mean, for me, it is more of an afterthought. I don’t pick the frame before I create the art piece, so why would I do that with my writing? I mean, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to know the size/shape I would need to create the piece in order to not pay an arm and a leg for custom framing, but I think that is as far as I would go. A very general idea, but anything past that blocks my creativity. That way I pick the style/color of the frame to fit the art instead of the other way around. But, to each his own. Is this already framed? Did I trip, fall and frame this? Ugh.
Still clicking and I think the girl next to me is getting annoyed, and crap, what did he just say about experiment? Every novel is an experiment? That’s a cool way to look at it. Haha, they all think I’m taking notes. I guess I sort of am, just not in the way they think. Are they thinking? Just write it down to see what happens…
Applause.
Pen cap on, pen cap off. Cliquey, these things are so cliquey. I never know what to do at these things. Who to talk to or what to say. And the sad part is that no one else does either. It’s this room, blocks my sociability. I’ll leave the room and find someone to talk to. Cut the bull, really talk and hey, there’s Josh. And we’re talking. He gets it. Writers coming to see writers but what do we all do after? Two students approach with new autographed books in hand and five minutes pass and I’m walking to my car. Brushing the snow off of the windshield and thinking about what I will write when I get home.
The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.
There are two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Art?
Why are you an artist? Because I’m vain. I obviously think I have something to say that is special, or else I’d probably quit. I mean, come on. Being an artist, an everyday normal artist, sucks. You spend so much time trying to express an idea that never comes out the way that you want it to. You put your heart and soul into creating, put in years of unverifiable training/experience, translate an ineffable concept in order to evoke a reaction, and are not (or are under) compensated. Artists live their lives waiting. Waiting for the recognition of a bourgeois member of society to say, “I want that in my living room.” The artist creates in order for there to be a change in consciousness. To learn something, to teach something and share it with everyone. They wait for anyone that will listen, and hope to convince those that won’t. They do not create to have the art hidden away in someone’s house. Their inspiration and motivation does not come from the need to put food in their belly.
New page for a new project
So, recently I’ve been injected with a very powerful dose of inspiration, so I have started a new project. It’s called “I should be famous.” I made a new page showing you the process (or the beginning of it), so check it out!
From series “I should be famous” by Lala Drona
Project still in progress. This is phase one. I’ll post updated versions when available…and when I can find a printing company that won’t charge me an arm and a leg to print large photo quality prints. It’s been hell, but I think I found the place. Almost time for phase two!!
Dedication to the Uncomfortable
No. I will not give in. I will not plug in and tune out. This is my dedication to the uncomfortable. I will rediscover the pleasure in it. I will unpause and resume my mental evolution. Not a revolution. I will not negate one idea and replace it with another, but instead will place it in a pool of ideas, each and every concept a tool at my disposal. And right now I choose to throw in my television, iPod and smart phone. Texts and emails may go unanswered, blogs may be neglected, and the waves of the internet will go unsurfed. I choose to be active in my free time, and not run my mind on a perpetual wheel to nowhere. I will not be kept passive, distracted. The mental lever will be switched to green—unoccupied, and I will start thinking for myself. I will write, draw, paint, walk, talk. I will lie there and let my mind fill with its own creations. I will put the comfortable on hold, I will stop consuming and regurgitating and I will create. From nothing, and from everything.
The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.
