100 Pineapples for Sauce that Definitely Tastes Like Something
I'm sitting here and it's quiet. And I have all of these strands of narrative and hyperanalytic jibble-jabble that are trying to coalesce into word-signs and take their place in the world as pieces of meaning, but I'm just not in the mood to let them tonight; I'd rather play with the strands.
I've always loved the concept of narrative, of a traceable plotline, of characters that can be parsed down to the syllable/letter/handstroke, of picking apart a story's "devices" and treating them like something I can put in a cup and drink, taste, swallow, inhabit. And lately I've been burying myself more and more into narratives outside of myself (or what I think is outside of myself)... because it's easier, more dramatic, dynamic, pretty, whatever. --So Lindsay Lohan admits she's bulimic and a cokehead, huh?-- And know what? I do care about that. I do, I do, I so fucking totally do. I care in this desperate way that is beyond, or maybe, more aptly, apart from, disparate from, my need to eat food and pee and have sex and make my bed just-so and ask my lamp if it had a good day and oftentimes actually wait for an answer. But why?
----I care because the collective we, for whatever reason, feels a need to imbue Lindsay with meaning, amplified meaning. We could talk about her cute freckles, or her boobs-grown-overnight, or her suddenly-pencil upper arms. Or we could admit that we've made a decision somewhere along the way to deem what she "means" as important, as freaking "interesting" in some way. And I sure as all-fuck want to figure out why. Because there are certainly other freckle-faced cuties with big tits that don't make the cover of People for tossing their cookies in wicked nice bathrooms. Her signification combinatorics are spot on for the righthererightnow, and I'd love to pick her apart until I collapse. But can you really boil down the cultural episteme into a thick enough sauce to pick up any actual flavor? Is it fair for me to stick my finger into the pop culture identity pot and try to figure out what it's made of? Curry? A touch of nutmeg, maybe? Scotch on the rocks--make that a double? Or is it enough to feed off her composition and take away what I, perhaps we, will? Can we find identity in a cyclic fight of why "we" may/may not identify with this Pollock of meanings that we name, simply, "Lindsay"?
I can't just like what I like because I like it. Because:
a. I'm judgemental and overanalytical by nature. But I need a reason to act this way, however tenuous and, possibly, false.
b. Treating pop culture narratives as up-for-grabs intro-to-Bio cadavers makes my mind make a phat-ass whirring sound.
c. Seeing pieces of meaning bond together into words that my mouth understands how to say is so totally beautiful. and frickin' really cool.
----I care because I keep seeing narratives in my own line of vision come together in these amazing ways that I wish I had written. And when I see the lives around me being circled by tricky lighting and then illuminated by this eerie glow that is, at once, both deeply haunting and simply logical, I stop wondering why I fixate upon mediated images and stories that have already been illuminated for me. They're lovely little placeholders until I find my own story; and I intend to suck the life out of them while I wait.
----I care because I want to tape all of these strands to my wall right now so I can manhandle them later: touch them, braid them, hold my lighter under the frayed ends to see if they curl and filigree as they burn.
I can never decide whether I should put the collective "we" in quotation marks; maybe that's the root of my 'ssues.
I've always loved the concept of narrative, of a traceable plotline, of characters that can be parsed down to the syllable/letter/handstroke, of picking apart a story's "devices" and treating them like something I can put in a cup and drink, taste, swallow, inhabit. And lately I've been burying myself more and more into narratives outside of myself (or what I think is outside of myself)... because it's easier, more dramatic, dynamic, pretty, whatever. --So Lindsay Lohan admits she's bulimic and a cokehead, huh?-- And know what? I do care about that. I do, I do, I so fucking totally do. I care in this desperate way that is beyond, or maybe, more aptly, apart from, disparate from, my need to eat food and pee and have sex and make my bed just-so and ask my lamp if it had a good day and oftentimes actually wait for an answer. But why?
----I care because the collective we, for whatever reason, feels a need to imbue Lindsay with meaning, amplified meaning. We could talk about her cute freckles, or her boobs-grown-overnight, or her suddenly-pencil upper arms. Or we could admit that we've made a decision somewhere along the way to deem what she "means" as important, as freaking "interesting" in some way. And I sure as all-fuck want to figure out why. Because there are certainly other freckle-faced cuties with big tits that don't make the cover of People for tossing their cookies in wicked nice bathrooms. Her signification combinatorics are spot on for the righthererightnow, and I'd love to pick her apart until I collapse. But can you really boil down the cultural episteme into a thick enough sauce to pick up any actual flavor? Is it fair for me to stick my finger into the pop culture identity pot and try to figure out what it's made of? Curry? A touch of nutmeg, maybe? Scotch on the rocks--make that a double? Or is it enough to feed off her composition and take away what I, perhaps we, will? Can we find identity in a cyclic fight of why "we" may/may not identify with this Pollock of meanings that we name, simply, "Lindsay"?
I can't just like what I like because I like it. Because:
a. I'm judgemental and overanalytical by nature. But I need a reason to act this way, however tenuous and, possibly, false.
b. Treating pop culture narratives as up-for-grabs intro-to-Bio cadavers makes my mind make a phat-ass whirring sound.
c. Seeing pieces of meaning bond together into words that my mouth understands how to say is so totally beautiful. and frickin' really cool.
----I care because I keep seeing narratives in my own line of vision come together in these amazing ways that I wish I had written. And when I see the lives around me being circled by tricky lighting and then illuminated by this eerie glow that is, at once, both deeply haunting and simply logical, I stop wondering why I fixate upon mediated images and stories that have already been illuminated for me. They're lovely little placeholders until I find my own story; and I intend to suck the life out of them while I wait.
----I care because I want to tape all of these strands to my wall right now so I can manhandle them later: touch them, braid them, hold my lighter under the frayed ends to see if they curl and filigree as they burn.
I can never decide whether I should put the collective "we" in quotation marks; maybe that's the root of my 'ssues.
posted by jayniek at 10:42 PM
2 Comments:
"Because there are certainly other freckle-faced cuties with big tits that don't make the cover of People for tossing their cookies in wicked nice bathrooms."
brilliant. the new england jargon included, extra-ly brilliant.
and i think we're into narratives because ultimately narratives are the whole point. forget what they told you in CCD.
"I care because I keep seeing narratives in my own line of vision come together in these amazing ways that I wish I had written."
you are nothing short of my little soulmate.
i always wonder if my internal editor (or is it author?) - the one that types furiously away at my every thought and inclination - is a little bit of the holy one. is it determining what i do or say in some sort of twisted mindcontrol that inevitable leads me to where i am supposed to be? or is that just my excuse for being so locked into my head?
when is it that my heart determines the narrative? is it my heart that is controlling the digitial E - since its entirely internal, and doesn't see the outside world except for when its ramblings and intuitions are thrown up on a screen in tiny dotmatix forms?
or is it truly in my head, which tells me to walk, talk, have sex, eat and pee in a world where this thing that i am actually has a corporeal form?
is it possible that for all this fumbling in the dark to dip my finger into something i can swallow down - is that really just to try and for a moment understand why i AM - not who - why. am i really just trying to write the narrative that finally connects my heart to my head?
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