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Posts published in “Writing”

On the Advice of Torgeir, The Black Metal Extremist V

December 14, 2011 |

Vox Critica and Writing

Question:

One of my childhood friends makes a very good living. But I am a musician, who sleeps in a sleeping bag on my floor. His bachelor party was in Las Vegas. I couldn’t afford the trip, but he said, “I’ll cover you.” I asked, “Everything?” He said, “Everything.” All told, I spent about $1,400. Before receiving my total, my friend sent me a $500 check and told me not to argue, to take the whole amount. Now what do I do?

You are a musician?! Feeding the corporate pop charts, no doubt! You do no know the true meaning of musicianship until you’ve made a necklace from the skull of your recently-deceased bandmate. That is musicianship. Harmonies are for Christians, and therefore weak trash. Noise is all that matters. I bet you even distribute your music on “CDs” or on the “Internet”. Pathetic worm. The only true way to trade music is on vinyl or cassette tape. You make me sick. You might as well go out and join the legions who work their miserable pathetic lives away in cubicles all across your pathetic capitalist state. I assume you are American because only Americans would have such ridiculous problems.

I have commented on the futility of marriage before, so I will not repeat myself. But, I will ask you this, why would you deign to engage your friend’s pathetic pre-mating ritual when you could not support yourself? Only a fool lives outside his means and you, worm, are a fool. When your “childhood friend” asked you to go to his “bachelor party” (whatever that is), you should have never accepted if you could not manage it on your own. Would my Viking ancestors have sailed across the Atlantic and established colonies in Canada if they could not manage it on their own? Of course not. There was no one else but themselves to rely on. There was no “help”. I would ask the same of your Viking ancestors, but I assume that you are from some inferior stock, Catholic most likely. Disgusting.

I do not know who graces the face of your American blood money, but I am sure that you should be pleased that your friend even gave you the 500 “dollars” he did. Never expect or ask for charity. It is a sign of weakness. You are weak. Now, you have to swallow the 900 “dollar” difference and continue to sleep in your sleeping bag on the floor like some homeless scum in your American mansion while you wait for the ASCAP to send you residual checks for the fetid puke you foist on people as “music”. Oh your life is so hard. You have brought this on yourself.

Furthermore, what is it with you Americans always expecting charity? I recently wrote at a woman who thought she should have her dinner paid for when looking for places to host her foul union with some pathetic male and she felt that she should be given something for nothing. ABSUrd. You are the same as she. Spend a winter in a shed in the wastes of northern Norway and tell me about hardship sometime.

Choke on vomit.

Soundtrack: Arckanum’s Helvitismykr

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> Continue reading...On the Advice of Torgeir, The Black Metal Extremist V

On the Advice of Torgeir, The Black Metal Extremist IV

December 7, 2011 |

Vox Critica and Writing

Question:

A friend fell in love with a cowboy through the Internet. They shared their hopes and dreams, and even discussed marriage and a baby — though my friend is in her 50s, and they’d never met. She planned to move to his state to live with him. She flew there, they connected for a few days, then he broke up with her. Now she is devastated, and telling her story to anyone who’ll listen. She sounds nuts, and I want to protect her. May I tell her to stop?

You must not just tell her to stop, you must force her to stop. Bind her, gag her, throw her into a lake, do anything you must to make her stop forcing her pathetic tales of broken-hearted misery on undeserving people. There is nothing more vile than someone unloading their heartbreak onto other people. How dare she inflict her misery upon someone else! Does she not understand that people do not care about her sadness!? Hopes!? Pfah! Dreams?! PFAH! These are the illusions of a weak mind. She allowed herself to be weak, to be seduced, and now she is paying for it. By all means, by fire and ice, by wolf and crow, shut her up or I will leave my shed in the woods and do it for you.

We do not have “cowboys” in Norway, but my understanding of their slack-jawed cattle wranglers is that they are not often indoors, much less on the internet. How did this feeble-minded friend of yours meet this “cowboy” on the internet if cowboys do not have or know how to use computers? She got what she deserved from following her “heart” straight into the arms of the deceiver. Actually, you know what? I like this liar cowboy. He has done Darkness’s work by breaking your foolish friend’s lovesick heart. He should be crowned champion and be allowed to break more hearts and more hearts and more hearts.

I have no experience with heartbrokenness. I was born into this world with a soul full of mist and have never felt anything but bleakness and the cold frost of Norwegian winters. I know only the call of the raven and the smell of smoke. Allowing yourself to feel for someone else is a sign of weakness. And for your “friend” to be so presumptuous that she thinks we will care when her weakness is revealed and exploited by the obviously more powerful “cowboy” only leads me to believe that she should be put out of her (and our) misery.

Kill your friend.

Soundtrack: Celeste’s “Misanthrope(s)”

Also posted at:

> Continue reading...On the Advice of Torgeir, The Black Metal Extremist IV

Ode on The Dude Sleeping Face Down On the Subway Bench

December 7, 2011 |

Poetry and Writing

This morning I was inspired to write a poem after seeing a man sleeping face down on a subway bench. Here it is.

O! Dude sleeping face down on the subway bench
How do you stay asleep with passing trains?
They are so very very loud.
I wonder what sort of despair brought you to this place
Where face down on a subway bench is an ideal spot to sleep

Thank you, thank you. I think this is deserving of a new Writing subcategory.

> Continue reading...Ode on The Dude Sleeping Face Down On the Subway Bench

Terry Gilliam on Kubrick VS. Spielberg

December 1, 2011 |

About Filmmaking, About Writing, Film & TV, Thoughts and Writing

Even though he comes off as a little bit of a dick, Gilliam’s comment on the nature of art is valuable and true. Effectively, that the best art leaves strings hanging for the viewer/reader/whateverer to figure out for themselves which, I believe, creates a more intimate experience. There’s nothing like having to work for comprehension to help make a thing feel like it is your own, to build a bond with a work, to internalize it, to have it affect you. When handed all the answers, things are boring as hell. It’s one of my major pet peeves with YA fiction and, really, a lot of SF/F. I get so bored when everything is explained. Just put things in there and let us work it out through context. That is one of the things I really enjoyed about Gene Wolfe’s work. Creativity is problem solving. Jeez, that’s like my new mantra.

And like women, the easy ones are boring. There’s nothing more boring than a woman who throws herself at you. It’s the difficult ones we all like and go after. Art. Women. Women. Art. They are the same.

> Continue reading...Terry Gilliam on Kubrick VS. Spielberg

Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto For Growth

November 30, 2011 |

About Filmmaking, About Music, About Photography, About Writing, Film & TV, Music, Photography, Thoughts and Writing

The other day as I was clicking through Tumblr, a network I am finding increasingly strange, I happened upon an image with three points labeled “Incomplete Manifesto for Growth”. After following the tumble trail to its absolute origin, I found this: Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. Man, I love shit like this.

Originally written in 1998 by designer Bruce Mau, the list outlines his design process. But, more importantly, I think the little snippets of advice and guidance can inform any creative process, from writing to design to filmmaking to music. Whatever it is you’re struggling with creatively can benefit from some alternative perspective. You may not always take the advice, but if it causes you to think differently about the problem you’re trying to solve, then it was helpful. As I said yesterday, creativity is problem solving, and anything that helps you solve a problem is good.

And this list is filled with all sorts of good lits bits. If I were forced to pick my favorite five, they would be these.

2. Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

9. Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

11. Harvest ideas.
Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.

32. Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

40. Avoid fields.
Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.

I know, I know. That was six. I tried not to post the whole list. Get over it.

Check out the remainder of the 43 points here: Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.

Number 15 on the list, Ask Stupid Questions, reminds me a lot of Leonardo’s to-do list from the post yesterday. “Ask Benedetto Portinari by what means they go on ice in Flanders”?? That is a stupid ass question. Maybe I’m not asking stupid enough questions.

> Continue reading...Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto For Growth

The Theme for 2012

November 29, 2011 |

About Filmmaking, About Music, About Writing, Film & TV, Music and Writing

It is that time of year again! Time to announce the coming year’s theme! And I know you’ve all been waiting patiently for me to have an excuse to ramble on wildly about my musings about creativity and my own personal journey with it. I know you all love it. Or at least the three of you who read these don’t completely hate it. So, that’s good.

In previous years, the themes have been The Year of 5000 Photos and 50 Short Stories (2009), The Year of 3 Music Videos and 12 Short Stories (2010), and, this year, The Year of 12 Projects (and Slowing My Roll) (2011). Of course, in previous years I had other themes—The Year of Trying New Things, The Year of Writing, The Year of Focus, The Year of Finishing Things, and The Year of Self-Care—but those have not been documented here on The Black Laser, so we’ll mostly ignore them for the purposes of this one-sided discussion. If you’d like to read more on my thoughts on previous years’ themes, go right ahead.

This year, The Year of 12 Projects, has been remarkably successful so far with 13 of my 12 projects completed at this point. I won’t go too much into my thoughts about the year as a whole yet—I’m saving that for its own year-end write up—but let’s just agree that it’s been great. And let’s also acknowledge that it’s the first time ever that I’ve met the goals I set out for myself at the beginning of the year.

Wait, that bears repeating. It is the first time in eight years of giving myself themes instead of resolutions that I’ve actually accomplished what I set out to do.

Holy shit.

Amazing!

I think a lot of what made this year such a success was that I allowed my brain to sort of go anywhere in terms of being creative. I wasn’t limited to one specific type of thing. I could do whatever caught my fancy, and, in turn, I got a lot done. That is great. In fact, a posting I recently read at NPR’s blog about Leonardo da Vinci’s to-do list seems to reinforce that allowing your brain to wander, to be unfocused, is beneficial for getting things done. Not that I am da Vinci, but I seem to have stumbled upon the same results. It goes against years of myself trying to focus on one thing, one goal, one idea. No wonder I was never able to do a damned thing; I worried so much about being focused, driven, single-minded about my creativity that I limited what I could be accomplishing otherwise. Knowing that I do better when I let myself be free is rather refreshing, actually.

While thinking about what I wanted to accomplish for 2012, I recognized that part of my creative palette that I have been really missing this last year and a half or so is my writing. I haven’t written any fiction at all in ages. Do you, avid reader of The Black Laser, recall the last time I posted fiction here? No you don’t. Do you know why? Because it was January 28, 2010. That is terrible. A couple (few?) weeks ago I tweeted, “Do you remember when I used to write stories??? Whatever happened to that, huh??” I wrote it as sort of a joke, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it is actually kind of sad. For something that was so important to me that I was going to give up a decent career twice for it, how could it have fallen so far out of my life that the last time I wrote anything of consequence was in January of last year? It’s like having a really awesome girlfriend and then suddenly you stop talking to her at all and then 20 months later you’re all, “Hey, where did she go?? How did she get away from me????” And then after you recognize that you’re all, “Damn, I’d better do something about this because I really miss her.”

And that is what writing feels like to me: an amazing supportive relationship with its ups and downs and pitfalls and triumphs. It has always felt so much more real to me than my ventures into filmmaking or photography or drawing or animation any of the other things I’ve dabbled in. Writing is challenging and because it is challenging it is rewarding like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. It feels good and it hurts and it is scary and I love it. I mean, duh, obviously, look at how I get going on things like this when I give a damn about them. I’m just blah blah blahing all up and down the East River like a crazy man with a garbage bag for a hat.

So that brings us to this year’s theme:

The Year of Writing

A question remains: how do I reconcile the success I had when I let my brain wander with the desire to focus on one specific kind of output? I thought of this, too. I think the key lies in not forcing “writing” to be any one thing, but allowing it to take whatever form I think I want to mess around with at that moment.

The astute reader will notice that this is in fact my second Year of Writing, the previous one being an abortive effort before I had any sense of how to structure these things for maximum efficacy. But I know how to do that now and that means giving myself limits that allow me to be flexible. Funny, right? Limits that allow me to be flexible. But it’s true and it works. Full open-endedness is daunting, but limit the creative sandbox a little and you’ll be surprised what you can come up with. Creativity is problem solving. Give yourself problems to solve.

So what are my limits/goals for this year?

  • 100,000 words – While chit-chatting with Lindsey on the IMs about what my goals should be for this year I recalled that at my peak output, I was writing at least 500 words a day. If I could maintain that every day of the year, my output would be 182,500 words. A massive amount. But I am not going to be so unrealistic and believe that I am actually going to write every single day of the year. Let’s don’t be ridiculous. There are going to be nights where I’ll have my face buried in the computer doing nothing but fucking off on the internet and nights where I am stuck at work late and nights where I just won’t want to write. And 100,000 is a nice, round number.

    What counts toward my 100,000 word count? Anything: letters to my brain, long articles on The Black Laser about whatever, anything for Vox Critica, any fiction, screenplays (who knows???). Basically anything where I give a damn about the quality of the writing. This encompasses quite a lot of what I do and should make hitting 100K for the year not such a daunting challenge. The only things that won’t count are when I’m bullshitting about music videos (unless I actually have something to say, my prerogative) and things like Twitter/Facebook/whatever. I mean, this thing is already 1200 words long. I’d only need to do 84 posts like this and I’d be done.

  • Dance EP – I’ve been talking about making a dance record for a long time. I love dance music. It’s so stupid and fun but can also be really beautiful in the right hands. Those hands are not mine, but that doesn’t stop from wanting to put my own music out there. And it fits under the header of “writing” quite nicely and is so different than writing words that it allows me to play around in a different medium but still be working toward my theme for the year. It will allow my brain to wander when I don’t have anything particularly meaningful to say otherwise.

    What constitutes a Dance EP? Well, as we all know an EP is longer than a single but shorter than an album, so like 3 to 5 songs. I think that is about right. I just want it to be a fun project that makes people want to move and shake their asses and do all that stupid shit that people do that makes them look really funny in photos.

There you have it. 2012, The Year of Writing. 100,000 words or whatever and a dance EP.

And if you think that I think about this stuff too much, I’ll just leave this little snippet of yesterday’s conversation here for you to enjoy.

The Space Pope
4:39 PM The year I did 50 short stories, I kept a word/story count by each date I finished one so I could graph the work.
4:39 PM Jeez, I think about this too much maybe. But whatever.
4:40 PM I could keep a spreadsheet of writing by wordcount/type/date

lfkaufman
4:40 PM You think about most things too much. :)

Now I’ve blown my little secret that I intend to graph my progress. Here’s to 2012!

> Continue reading...The Theme for 2012

A Letter To Having Nothing At All To Say

November 16, 2011 |

Letters and Writing

Dear Having Nothing to Say,

Did you see the game last week? Yeah, it was pretty sweet, huh? The one sportsguy sure did a good job preventing the sportsguy on the opposing squad from accomplishing his goals. It was quite a performance. They certainly are competent practitioners of their sports!

I’m writing today, Having Nothing to Say, because I really have nothing to say. I’ve been trying to think of things I have opinions about, but nothing is coming to me. It’s weird, you know, because I am an opinionated crank of a human being and usually there’s plenty inside my brain to waste people’s precious time. But today—and the last few days, really—I’ve had absolutely nothing at all to say.

There was so much build-up to my 1000th post and 3rd birthday, that I feel like I exhausted my good Black Laser ideas. That is, of course, totally untrue. As long as I breathe there will be a lot of crap for me to spew out onto the interwebs, but I’ve found myself in a bit of a lull, Having Nothing to Say. It’s a little frustrating, I guess, but I’ve also been quite busy (read: there are many people in Skyrim that must die).

And, god damn, I need to get going on my Christmas track. I wrote some good lyrics this morning on the train and I think it’s going to be a very fun one. Here’s a sampling.

It’s Christmas Eve
Waiting at the club
Santa’s gonna show
That motherfucker’s up

Bringing presents
To all girls and boys
Shaking his ass
To this funky techno noise

And Mrs Claus says

Bitch! GET YOUR ASS TO THE CLUB, come on
Get your ass to the club!
No time for thinking
Get your ass to the club!

We got Rudolph in this bitch
We got elves in this bitch
We got snowmen in this bitch
We got Jesus in this bitch.

Mind that those are just rough lyrics I threw together during my trip into town on the M train this morning. Nothing set in concrete. I have no plans for Thanksgiving, so I’m sure there will be plenty of time to get to making sick techno beats and pitch shifted vocals. On that point, I have no plans for Christmas either, so maybe I’ll just spend the rest of the year making dance music alone in my house.

God, that’s depressing.

Anyway, go to hell, Having Nothing To Say, I’m damn sick of you. If you just up and died, I wouldn’t be upset. I wouldn’t miss you. Fuck, this reminds me that I need to write some Togeirs too. Man, so much to do and so few words with which to do them. And remember the William Blake Dance Party Extravaganza? That went nowhere, huh? Jeez.

Whatever, fuck this. I am sick of this letter already.

Sincerely,

The Black Laser.

> Continue reading...A Letter To Having Nothing At All To Say

A Letter to My Brain To Open a Discussion on the Topic of Focus.

November 10, 2011 |

Letters and Writing

Dearest brain,

I feel like you and I have been friends for a long time. Sure, there were the years I abused you, but I’ve always been a better friend to you than my body. I mean, that’s not to say my body has ever treated me badly, but we’ve had a strained relationship. We’ve always had a bit of a disconnect and I’ve never gone out of my way to take care of my body since I reside so wholly in my mind. Brain, you know, I know it. It’s the truth. Sorry, body, I’m trying to be better to you, but you cannot change the past. We’ll get back to you in a little bit.

So, brain, why are you thwarting every attempt I’ve made the last three days to do any work? HMMmmmmmm?? You allow me just brief glimpses of focus, 2, maybe 4 minutes tops. Why not just let me focus on the shit I need to do? What the hell is up with you?

I’ve noticed a pattern with you, brain. I’ve noticed that when I am hungover or tired or feeling shitty, you have a much easier time letting me get down to work. What’s that about? Must I constantly be hungover/tired/sick to accomplish anything? Must I wait until the middle of the night to have creative revelations and be focused enough to actually make them real? Why cannot I not just feel ok and awake and healthy and not have you bothering me all the time by thinking of 80 million things all at once.

For example, today, in my effort to reacquaint myself with my body, I’m well rested, not hungover in the slightest (surprising since I had a birthday dinner last night for a good friend, nor any drop to drink), and I’ve eaten. EATEN! I never eat! All remarkable things considering the state of Joe the last few years. But I can’t do anything for longer than a minute before I get distracted and look away. This stupid letter has taken me hours of writing a sentence, fucking off for a while, pacing the office, watching some dailies, trimming my selects, stretching on the skate ramp, digging through the pantry for snacks, and then sitting back down and writing another sentence.

Brain! I’ve got work to do! This Safeway turkey thing won’t cut itself! I just need like 2 hours from you. Come on, you can do it. I can crank out something in 2 hours. I know you know exactly where we need to go with it; let’s just bang it out and be done. Why fight me? Why fight me all the time?! Is this what ADD feels like? If it does, I feel sorry for people who are afflicted with this. Fuck, it’s not like this is new for me. Maybe I’m all attention-deficit too. Who knows. I’m not a doctor, brain, though I do know how to remove sutures. That’s all right.

Wait! Back to the matter at hand! Brain! Focus! Help! There’s nothing out there that cannot wait! Just shut up for a minute and let’s pay our work attention so we can go back to being a flighty, distracted pair again. Please? Please? PLEASE?

Sincerely,

The Black Laser.

PS – Body, sorry, told you I’d get back to you. Yes, I am scared about the possibility of 100 pullups, 200 pushups, and 300 squats for time tomorrow. Yes, I know, the squats not so scary, and neither are the pullups (assisted, of course), but 200 pushups. Holy shit, I know. Maybe we go tonight instead and do 1200 meters, 30 deadlifts with weight, and 63 pullups? Decisions! Should we do both?

> Continue reading...A Letter to My Brain To Open a Discussion on the Topic of Focus.