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I was once asked by a high-school student in an audience in Chennai: “Why, sir, are you so eager to please?” That’s how I tend to define failure – work done for what Heidegger called “Das Mann”, the indeterminate “They” who hang over your shoulder, warping your sense of judgment; what he (not me) would call your authenticity.

That novelist, like me, I suppose like all of us who came of age under postmodernity, is naturally sceptical of the concept of authenticity, especially what is called “cultural authenticity” – after all, how can any of us be more or less authentic than we are? We were taught that authenticity was meaningless. How, then, to deal with the fact that when we account for our failings, as writers, the feeling that is strongest is a betrayal of one’s deepest, authentic self?

That sounds very grand: maybe it’s better to start at the simplest denomination of literary betrayal, the critic’s favourite, the cliche. What is a cliche except language passed down by Das Mann, used and shop-soiled by so many before you, and in no way the correct jumble of language for the intimate part of your vision you meant to express? With a cliche you have pandered to a shared understanding, you have taken a short-cut, you have re-presented what was pleasing and familiar rather than risked what was true and strange. It is an aesthetic and an ethical failure: to put it very simply, you have not told the truth. When writers admit to failures they like to admit to the smallest ones – for example, in each of my novels somebody “rummages in their purse” for something because I was too lazy and thoughtless and unawake to separate “purse” from its old, persistent friend “rummage”. To rummage through a purse is to sleepwalk through a sentence – a small enough betrayal of self, but a betrayal all the same. To speak personally, the very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life. But it is easy to admit that a sentence makes you wince; less easy to confront the fact that for many writers there will be paragraphs, whole characters, whole books through which one sleepwalks and for which “inauthentic” is truly the correct term.

- Zadie Smith, Fail Better

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Dudes!

I am excited to be a music writer for Singapore Press! Will be doing interviews with bands that visit NYC– mostly bands that are signed by major labels… hmm… no indie artists, however.

I will probably need a photographer– but that is not something I have discussed with them yet.

Also fashion trends– upcoming for spring and fall and perhaps some street fashion stuff. Right now we are just in the idea stage. Give me some ideas! brklyngirljk@gmail.com I am open to it!

xo,

jk

YES.

most delicious.

Karen O. hmm. nice.

Have you ever had the experience of looking at a photo and sensing something achingly familiar, even though you have never seen it before? ( sorry i am experimenting with breath and pause in text. also the experience of expectation. it’s interesting how space on a page can isolate a word, a place to rest for a moment, either the word, or the space that follows it).

I think my memory has more to do with varying shades of light             than       anything else.

more so      than taste.

sound would     second         that list.

What’s odd is          temperature        is

not really something              one      feels a recall.

Like oh, it’s 101 degrees in here,          this feels         awfully       familiar.

I wonder why that is?

Recall is more specific,       it has a frame,        a context.

Temperature varies, but then             so      does light.

But         I can measure light more      specifically         than temperature.

But maybe that would be different,       say,        for a polar bear,         or         an Eskimo.

They would be more sensitive – their instincts          would be         different.

Not really trying to make a point here.

If you know me,     then

you know   there is no   point   to

drive home,     just     open     curiosity.

noah kalina, photo

noah kalina, photo

Who are you Heather Maxwell Hall?

Your photo-blog leaves me speechless.

heathermaxwellhall.blogspot.com

My ongoing love for letters, correspondence and penmanship has been fulfilled by this blog:

(mysteriousletters.blogspot.com)

All of it has been, sadly, replaced by electronic mail. I used to have pen-pals as a teenager, now I just have “contacts.” Such a cold word. And it’s universal. Someone should change the lexicon of technology usage to be warmer, more friendly. Though, if done badly, I think it would probably sound cheesy.( Like, imagine the word text would be replaced by panda bear. or pander bearing. Are you pander bearing me? That’s just an example, a bad one, but an example nonetheless). Or, think about the word BING! for example. I’m sure Microsoft had meeting after meeting and conference after conference– they probably wanted a word that sounded effortless and immediate and relevant (lots of things bing, like your phone, your computer and your exclamation mark bubble over your head when you get an idea). Not that I have anything against Microsoft– lots of people love Bing, though I admit, I haven’t used it really, maybe once or twice. So why am I talking about this? I haven’t the faintest. It’s another one of my tangential meanderings. Oh, pen-pals. I want one. Maybe with someone from South Africa or Iceland. Somewhere I’ve never been, someone who has no idea who I am and does not know I exist. right. this. moment.

Like being forgotten. but without a past. Oh, and by the way– can I just say HOLY CHRISTMAS! Who ARE all you new readers? someone’s hitting my site like a pinata! <— I use that expression quite a bit. Hi! Drop me a line, will ya?