July 11, 2004

The beginning is always the hardest - although I am occationally blessed with a few seconds of frenetic fingertip activity, more often than not my hands lay quiet and paralytic upon the keys. The dour editor of this fiction that is my life resides in the ring finger of my right hand, ever eager to bring it down in a hammerstroke upon the backspace key, dispelling whatever cantrips my hands sought to conjure.

I'd like to tell you that it is only a question of inertia, and that once the first few words spill out, the rest is as an unblocked river, but unfortunately this is not the case. In my experience, writing is a whole lot of glassy-eyed staring at a space a few inches in front of the screen (or page, for the luddites in the audience), the mind fluctuating between moments of vacuous calm and flashes of tempestuous cacophony. Whichever it might be at any given moment, it generally adds up to the same thing: motionless fingers. It's not all that easy to explain - there are countless things I could write about, to be sure: last weekend's tournament in Washington, how I almost got killed on the way home from said tournament, the week at work, my brother's visit fom Montreal or even about the girl who managed to get herself mentioned here despite all my efforts to prevent it; it's just that for some reason, I don't.

To wit: the last word of the paragraph above took me a good five minutes to settle on, and I still am not sure if it is the right one. Do I mean "can't", which obviously is not the case, as all of the above has been written and is subsequently now before your eyes - or obviously is the case, as I haven't actually written about any of them? Do I mean "won't", although now that I have (written about them), would have raised questions about my willpower and ability to control my actions?

What this really is is a fine example of the dangers of writing without any sense of focus. I can't even call it stream of consciousness, as I am censoring 99 percent of the thoughts that spring to mind. To be fair (and perfectly honest), a large percentage of those thoughts (and I am too coy to quantify this amount) are about the same thing.

Right. Breaktime. This is getting insane.

* * *

MY FATHER
TOO BROKE
TO BE WED
NEVER GOT
MY MOTHER
A DIAMOND

HE CLAIMED TO ADORE HER
TOO MUCH TO PROFANE HER
WITH GEMS MADE OF ASHES

- Christian Bok

I've been reading Bok's Crystallography recently, hence the double dosage of quotation today. It's a fascinating read; it's nice to find someone else who has an appreciation not only for the beauty of the words in combination, but also for the beauty of the words (and at times, the letters) themselves. There's a skilful manipulation of the language at work here, one that resonates on a number of levels. I'm not about to go into literary critique mode here, but he's definitely worth checking out. I wonder if he's a calligrapher? It wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Seeing as good things come in threes, it would inarguably be uncouth of me to provide you with a mere pair of quotes, and therefore, in the pursuit of bringing more good into the world, I offer the following:

Properties of the crystalline are proper ties of the crystal line.