Dear diary,
When life is good, one drinks it in without questioning; one does not think too much about it. But when life is bad, one becomes pensive and analytical; one says to oneself: “I’ve been trapped in this mob-run system all my years; I’m nearing my end; therefore, let me contribute my remaining energies only to that which shall have a lasting impact.”
My own situation is complicated by the fact that I was born not into the distant past or the faraway future but rather the present: right on the dot, the here and now. And what do we have? The infancy of the Internet. Lightning-fast communication. Science demands that shallowness join with rapidity and serve as its travel partner. So I live in an age of frivolity and ephemera.
I’m not complaining; I’m just giving my State of Reality Address.
Here, then, is the catch. My prime desire is for my mental energies to produce a lasting impact, and the forte of my era is to make precisely that impossible.
Even Shakespeare can be seen, in a certain sense, as a failure. I use Shakespeare as an example, because he’s the most successful poet I can imagine. And yet he failed, in that nobody attends to his work. Nobody reads what he offered; nobody views what he meant to be performed.
“No, Bryan,” you say, “you are wrong again: for I know people who have read Shakespeare’s sonnets, and I know others who have seen his plays performed.”
OK, gentle reader, I’ll grant your boringly accurate statement; but consider how foul and lifeless the readings of his poetry which exist today appear, and how wretchedly unwatchable almost every performance of his plays ends up being in our low time; compare this to what the reception of his works might be in a more enlightened age. Also, consider what type of people attend to the work of Shakespeare: they’re people like me – walking cadavers who have lost the game of life. All the fun people who are bursting with brightness and cheer, the people who smile genuinely when they speak and who work hard, build houses, raise children – those well-adjusted, worldly-wise citizens never read a word of Shakespeare. Or any other towering writers.
“Ah, but Bryan,” you argue, “remember what you yourself always remark about ‘The Happy Few’: it is not popularity or sales that determine the ultimate worth of poetry, but rather—”
Alright, you’ve made your point. Shakespeare is successful, after all. But what I’m really concerned about is me myself and I. So the question is: How do I, even I, become the recipient of acclaim? And that’s why I wanted to lament the flimsy forms of art that have let me down in this culture. By “forms” I mean media – cassette tapes for audio, celluloid for cinema, and now even paper for physical books. I always assumed that scripture is forever, but it seems that the Big Bang of electronic gadgetry has sent that ancient world a‑packing. Heaven itself has been rolled up like a scroll, misplaced and forgotten, and replaced with an e-Heaven that is always low on batteries.
I descended from the mountaintop with a digital videodisc, which I handed to the high priest: “This has the first two seasons of my sitcom on it,” I said. And he answered: “However, God’s people do not possess the right type of device that can play this.”
So I went back up, and after forty days I re-descended with several silver cans of film. “This is my silent masterwork. It has all my commandments on it. The people should watch and obey.” I hefted the stack of canisters into the arms of the priest. Then I smiled and added: “I also remembered to bring a projector; so, now, there’s no excuse: look, you just feed the film into it this way. Let me know when the reviews come out.”
But the high priest, after inspecting the filmstrip, replied: “Nobody will sit through a black and white feature-length presentation, especially if it has intertitles and lacks direct sound.”
“Just play the timbrels for accompaniment,” I said, “and colorize it – I’m at my wits’ end; please do whatever you must, to get this thing shown in theaters. For it is of utmost importance that people start honoring their parents, and have no other gods before me.”
But the next few trips up and down the mount resulted in my ink drawings and rap albums and even my series of fake novels being likewise rejected, all on account of technicalities. – So I tore my toga, slipped into sackcloth and dumped ash on my head. I sat on the mountainside and wept.
Then Yahweh, played by Orson Welles (circa 1965), came down and stood before me and said, in his echoing voice: “Bryan. Bryan. Doest thou well to be weepy? Get up now, and gird thy loins like a man.”
Mr. Welles and I then walked to the public house together. This lifted my mood. We met the resurrected Jesus on the way; and, although neither of us recognized him, he made fascinating contributions to our badinage.
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