There’s something original and creative even in the simple act of quoting another author’s words. There’s also something derivative and plagiaristic about articulating the dreams that issue straight from one’s own heart.
That’s my thesis statement. It can be divided into two parts: I & II. Now let me beat these claims to death:
I
Consider first my May 6 entry that ends with a quotation from Howard Zinn’s one-man play Marx in Soho. In that entry, I’m only copying Mr. Zinn’s words, but my choice of where to stop his text is an artistic decision of my own. Had I let the excerpt that concludes my own composition continue for just one more line, Marx would have said: “No, you’re pissing on my street.” And this would have deflated the gusto of Mikhail Bakunin’s outburst, as it does in Zinn’s play. But my own entry ends with Bakunin urinating out the window of Marx’s apartment and shouting:
“I’m pissing on London. I’m pissing on the whole British Empire.”
So even tho I’m basically stealing the words of Zinn, I am creating a mood that does not exist in the original, via my choice to omit his Marx’s wet-blanket reply. By allowing Bakunin’s boast to ring out infinitely — that is: past the end of the entry — I bar reality from dampening fantasy’s resonance: thus I invent the fresh, new mindset of BAKUNIN TRIUMPHANT.
“And yet,” my Accuser argues, “haven’t you negated your so-called creation, by the plain act of confessing your trick above? Haven’t you handed back the ‘inventor’ title to Zinn, now?”
I answer: Since my entry where the quote resides has its own start- and end-point, then this present entry can only comment on it; it cannot change that earlier entry’s constitution, it can only alter the reader’s perspective towards it. So this present entry indeed “returns the title to Zinn”; however, that prior entry still stands — its originality cannot be revoked (unless you burn it in a fire or choose to lyingly revise it and publish it dishonestly). But the reason I’m allowing myself to potentially lessen the power of my own earlier decision, by revealing to my audience the illusory nature of all magic, is that I prefer never knowing what exactly I’m doing or where my actions will end up. I leave closure to the wind.
II
Now, like I said in the beginning, just as there’s something creative even in the act of quoting another’s words, there’s also something plagiaristic even about speaking directly from one’s own heart. (Here I re-copy my thesis verbatim, as my intention is now to hogtie its lower half.) For consider that you decide to jot down on a paper whatever random things you imagine — you might assume that you’re composing an original work; and, of course, you are; but it’s only original in the way that the above quote-copying was original:
In other words, all speech is essentially collage — even the most dreamy, automatic rambling. Here’s why: Because each word was invented by someone or something else long ago, or at least yester-moment — as I think Ralph Waldo Emerson sez somewhere: Words are fossil poems — thus, all a soul-utterer can do is rearrange these finished products into novel forms. (Are the forms even novel anymore? I think they are: I say we have at least a decade left before we exhaust the possibilities of composition.) So, on a certain level, a little girl pouring out the fancies of her heart into a diary that she keeps under her pillow, despite the fact that those pages of that journal contain “her most private thots”, is doing nothing more creative, original, or inventive than I myself did when I spent my entire entry quoting Zinn’s Bakunin; due to the fact that the girl is stealing all her words!
Moreover, she’s copying my whole routine; for I was the first one to claim that I’m confessing my deepest and most heartfelt thots into my journal, when I called this here website The Public-Private Diary of Bryan Ray. I’ve even frequently referred to my diary’s appearance as being plastic & pink — & it has a gold lock on its cover: this detail the girl above copied from me as well; tho my own lock is broken, just like my heart. And instead of hiding my book underneath my pillow, I display my book’s pages proudly, for all to see; and I allow strangers to enter my bedroom & grab the pillow & smother me up. For, like it sez in “Song of Myself” (section 7):
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe…
So I don’t give a fig if businessmen kill me. I know that I’ll keep coming back to this same life, over & over, and each time I’ll enjoy it a little bit more. I’ll learn to relish being underpaid by misers for my labor. I’ll learn to enjoy suffering pains while not being able to afford U.S. medical care. So I’ll be glad that these economic miseries never change: for they will eventually cease to be interpreted as miseries but will instead be seen as boons, even treats, when my soul manages to be born in full command of the native tongue, and I am able to speak fluent American English as an infant. Just think:
THEN I’ll have really become a master thief; for all your words are now mine! & I can say that even the works of Shakespeare belong to ME, because he’s employing MINE OWN babble — human speech — which I patented in utero, to compose his masterpieces: A Midsummer Night’s Dream is but a collage of my juvenilia.
I could sue Shakespeare for copyright infringement, were it not that I’m a nice punk.
Yes, once I master my eternal recurrence, I’ll finally enjoy working at fast food and factories. They’ll be able to say about ME exactly what Hamlet sez about Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, when Horatio asks him how those childhood friends reacted to being newly navigated upon a path toward certain death:
“Why, man, they did make love to this employment!”
Yes, I’ll be able to handle anything: any news, however bad. And just when I’ve perfected the tragedy of my present life, and learned to savor all its rerun episodes, they’ll pull the rug out from under me, and I’ll fall upward into super-life, and realize that I’m my own oversoul:
I’ll need to get used to that as well, in the ultra-drag.
It’s all just steps on a staircase that either continues forever or has an end. If it is infinite, then I’ll eventually learn how to cherish the step I’m on, and I’ll probably stop trying to climb higher and higher.
On the other hand, if the staircase does have an end, I’ll try to rush to the top and leap off: and I will land in the abyss.
Now, if you can’t even observe the abyss without it likewise observing you, then imagine the bliss I’ll be having when I nosedive into it — I’ll have finally become the monster I always wanted to be.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
[That’s from Beyond Good & Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche; “Epigrams and Interludes”, #146]
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