Dear diary,
Say that I unexpectedly decide to quit working for the Surrealists… And then I also quit my gig with the Romantics… Now I go out searching for a new Dream Job…
Eventually, I find it: my longtime favorite TV soap opera is looking for someone of exactly my eye color and hair type to play the role of a pregnant matriarch…
So I go and audition… but I’m nervous—I care so much about getting this role (it is my Dream Job) that my acting is timid and shaky—therefore I end up probably ruining my chances of becoming hired… for those who are in the position of judging me want to see instant confidence; whereas my confidence, although robust once it sets in, is not cheap enough to be instant…
As early as now, I have lost interest in this fake situation… I was going to say that the other guy—my rival at the acting audition—is cool and nonchalant when he performs; because he already has a job on a boring sitcom, thus he has nothing to lose and doesn’t care if he gets the job—and that’s why he wins the election…
I’m distressed that so much of our present culture values not caring over caring… and sarcasm seems more prevalent than earnestness… I think these fads and trends are based on fear—those who are afraid of being seen as weak or wrong hope to win over potential critics by belittling their own fellow humans; whereas it takes courage to put forth your own heartfelt works and ideas earnestly, because you risk being disliked, or being seen as a failure…
Have you heard that is was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they were won.
Those lines are from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself (18). After I copied them here, my sweetheart summoned me to the front door and announced: “I’m going to the market now, but I didn’t put any makeup on—do I look OK?”
I told her that she looks fine, but that she should just avoid dating any priests. (I meant nothing specific by that—I only said it because I thought it sounded funny; it seemed like strange advice to give.) But she didn’t hear me (she stopped paying attention after the words “you look spectacular”), so I’m etching my grievance here: Let the Constituents of the Internet remember that I spoke an unloved quip this morning. Please reimburse me by the syllable.
I don’t go well with other weblogs—that’s my hypothesis. I mean, if you follow a ton of different blogs, then mine is probably the one you’re most likely to skip, because, I assume that, compared to others’ entries, mine are too topsy-turvy, too higgledy-piggledy…
And if, before skimming what I write here, you browse through other media formats, like videos, you will (I suspect) find my entries lackluster. Twenty-four frames per second multiplied by one thousand words per image: that’s more than a million words’ worth of information that you’re enjoying with every audiovisual minute!
And that prize increases, if it’s a skateboarding video.
In the olden days, however, when you painted a selfie of the queen, that portrait might get displayed in the royal high-rise; and, if a bystander wanted a copy of it, the fool would be forced begrudgingly to hire either the original artist all over again, or (more likely) another second-rate painter, to xerox the thing.
Here is my opinion: Reproducing an oil painting by hand is more difficult than digitally duplicating an electronic file. So, nowadays, because modern computers have evolved into teleportation devices that are betrothed to the World Wide Web… (etc., etc.)
But let’s say I perform a dance that Science itself declares inimitable. How are you going to make a copy of THAT and display it on your wall? For my dance is like a fourth-dimensional object.
(Hint: inkjet printers can now manufacture and animate matter capable of mimicking choreography with a level of accuracy that is passable even to ballet connoisseurs.)
Maybe that’s why the performance of live music remains so popular—it’s the only form of art that, in order to duplicate with exactitude, still requires the purchase of an expensive contraption.
So when we lasso the ancient despots with our time machine and haul them into the present (which is their future and the Lord GOD’s past), they are initially going to be puzzled by our habit of charging less for an original painting and more for its forgery. This is because our age correctly values the rarity of error.
No two kernels of popcorn are the same. No two number sevens are the same. No two clones of Isadora Duncan are the same (at least one is named Bryan).
In truth, before they pop, most kernels do appear to be identical; however, once they get a little butter and salt on them, they inherit personality.
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