la grande breteche. part one

la grande breteche.  pretty good read.  by honore de balzac.  (1799 -1850) french author most famous for la comedie humaine (the human comedy).  realism movement in western literature would've been not quite middle nineteenth century to the end of it, when it gave way to naturalism.  whenever you talk about this stuff, the scalpel and gauze exploration of the history of the arts, you run the risk of nova realization, which is where you sit down to watch nova thinking, i'm pretty smart, i'll keep up. then ten minutes later you realize that you're daydreaming about houses communicating late at night.

to speak plainly, there's a lot of big conceptual words to digest.  having just waded through a maze of such letters, strung together in myriad intellectual combinations, i feel like george costanza must've felt just after he had sex with the portuguese waitress.  what was i saying?  i at least had one good thought. about the conversation that g and i have as to the purpose of a blog.  bypassing the obvious who cares why, it's a fucking blog, idiot response, i think that for me it keeps the smart wires alive in my head.  see how far one idea can stretch, what ideas it calls out to and which call back, and then if you can filter and organize your thoughts with any keenness.  writing is a chore; even informal writing.  it's good to keep at least butterknife-sharp.  style, which the author gots to cull and then develop from the white depths of the blank page, is as important as the idea she is writing about.  jesus, all these academic websites have me writing like a jerk.

but maybe that's the hardest part, figuring out who the pieces are for.  know the audience, and customize.  if you're writing for wall street, write in a bunch of liberal jokes and tuck in an enigmatic remark comparing corporate salary with inflation.  the former will let them know that you want to wear their suits.  the latter will let them know that you're savvy enough to recognize their stripes.  my primary audience, then, is me.  like michael stipe said, dummy serve your own needs. life, it's true, is a gift.  scowl. it may well be a trojan horse, but still a gift.  who knows when we'll suddenly be unable to communicate with either style or even clarity, except that the moment will come.  i could rearrange but a dozen letters to spell out several different sorts of calamity.  i think that most bloggers must write from a place of security. it's true with me. so each of these entries, even just the titles, recalls writing from such a place.  and that makes it worth it. who knows if we might someday find ourselves logging on from an internet cafe, to catch a visage of the good old days.  the rest of it might just be jeopardy stuff.