17-18/04/13

For the past week or so my customary reluctance to write has turned into a refusal to write, since I had nothing new to say and, besides, I had other things to do and, more importantly, be, including a pretty engrossed reader of a library book on Germany from 'Lonely Planet', which has taught me so much I didn't know before, even when one finds oneself skipping over several pages – information on restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, and the like – on a regular basis, as one often does with this kind of book.

Interestingly, they always supply, in this 'Lonely Planet' guide, the population of the cities, towns, and even villages of Germany. But, of course, you always take that with a degree of scepticism, if not treat it outright dismissively. After all, quite apart from the figures being somewhat dated by now, several years after the last edition, populations are never static but tend to rise and fall with circumstances. You look at a given population figure and say to yourself, “Ah, I'll take that as a loose guide to the size of the place, be it city, town, or village, since only a fool would take the given figure literally.”

You could spend a lifetime travelling around Germany, visiting this and that, and still not have seen everywhere or know everything there is to know – in a general, schematic sort of way – about a place. Simply amazing!

Germany produces – and this opinion owes nothing to the above-mentioned guide – the best films in Europe, and when Germans act in American films, as they sometimes do, even American films are improved, or rendered less predictably violent and brash.

There are certain things I am extremely reluctant to write about, so I don't.

If I were to tell them everything about myself, they'd probably kill me or throw me in jail.

I am, in spite of this, no Rimbaud, to have written a couple of (questionable) books or, more correctly, collections of poems that were subsequently turned into books, like A Season in Hell and The Illuminations, only to pack it in for some other vocation or profession. Nor do I make a habit of doing other things whilst still claiming to be a writer, like, say, Albert Camus. I despise dilettantism, not least in regard to the general British attitude (inveterately hostile) to writing and, for that matter, to writers, at least if they amount to anything original and thought-provoking. They may prefer reading, but someone wrote the books they read, including writers living in England.

Living in England is, by itself, enough to make one a reluctant writer, though not necessarily, as in my case, because one is primarily a thinker or, for that matter, because the depiction of one's immediate circumstances and experiences don't necessarily make for enjoyable writing or pleasant reading but tend, on the contrary, to embarrass and disgust one....

I would no more copy a film (DVD) into my laptop that featured a bowtie-wearing jerk than … write a novel or other work of fiction based on such a person. In fact, I doubt that I could, or would want to, write anything remotely resembling fiction, these days, anyhow.

Once writing gets a hold on you it never lets go. Sometimes you are the one who is written by it.

I write, therefore I exist … in a broadly chemical way.

I read, therefore I exist … in a broadly physical way.

I speak, therefore I exist … in a broadly metachemical way.

I think, therefore I exist … in a broadly metaphysical way.

There is no single way of existing, not even in 'literary' terms, and no person exists – barring twins or so-called Siamese twins - in exactly the same way and to the same degree as another.

I exist to give … as a writer;

I exist to take … as a reader;

I exist to do (or act) … as a speaker;

I exist to be … as a thinker.

I exist, therefore I give, I take, I do, or I am.

The Philosopher may exist to be, but not anyone else within the literary world, least of all the Dramatist, or Playwright.

Doing and giving are more female than male; taking and being more male than female. In fact, doing is most female and least male, since metachemically absolute, whereas being, by contrast, is most male and least female, since metaphysically absolute.

Giving, on the other hand, is more (relative to less) female and less (relative to more) male, since chemically relative, whereas taking, by contrast, is more (relative to less) male and less (relative to more) female, because physically relative.

Unlike doing and being, which are noumenal (or ethereal) antitheses, giving and taking are phenomenal (or corporeal) antitheses, and therefore subject to comparative as opposed to superlative distinctions. One could, if one wished to complicate matters, write doing and being with initial capitals, as though to distinguish them, in this respect, from giving and taking, pretty much like the Devil and God vis-a-vis woman and man.

To wake up one morning only to discover that one had not been woken up by hammering, drilling, banging, scraping, and other such horrible noises, but that it was perfectly quiet, with not even the sound of a goods or passenger train passing nearby. One rubs one's eyes, looks around the room, as if to ensure that one hasn't died and gone to Heaven, but no! One is very much alive and lying in one's own bed in one's customary bedroom. And then, all of a sudden, the noises return, not from next-door, as before, but from up the road or down the road or across the road or in some adjoining or nearby street where more building or renovating is now taking place. But at least it is not right next to one at present, even if one can still hear it from afar!

Alas, even that is not the case today, and I know I must endure yet another day of mental torment at the hands of crass workmen and carry on with my life as best I can, still reluctant to write, not least about all this, but having little or no alternative, since if I stopped writing altogether … it would be as though in consequence of them, of the workmen next-door, and philistinism and brutality would have triumphed. Never! I shall outstay, outlive, and outwit the sons-of-bitches, come what may. And maybe, just maybe, one will wake up to discover that one's life is no longer subject to such dreadful noises, but is actually more akin to Heaven. A nice thought, but living in England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, I rather doubt it!

I have swapped a green notebook for an orange one, i.e., one with a pale orange front cover, and the next one, when I have filled this, will doubtless be another notebook with a pale green front cover, and so on, in alternating vein. Somehow, this suits me, as a person of mixed Irish descent, just fine.

Wir Sind Die Nacht is one heck of a beautiful film! Simply awesome in every respect, including, not least, the music. Who said film music was boring? They evidently haven't been watching the right films!

I despise people who eat cake that has no icing on it.