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"I always tell my writing students not to try to wrap things up in a neat little bow when they’re actually complicated and unresolved. That the lack of closure can be a better ending than manufactured closure that’s not genuine. The parts of the story that don’t seem to fit together can often be where the real story is. I encourage them to look for those spots of friction and write into the complexity. That’s where the good stuff is."
- Lilly Dancyger
From this interview: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/finding-the-story-a-conversation-with-lilly-dancyger/
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May 10, 2024
May 9, 2024
Another excerpt from the novel-in-progress Desire Without Expectation
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The beginning could also be the end. The idea of a lost masterpiece was of course alluring. But was there one? Did it actually exist? Perhaps the rumour was the work. Setting up the rumour was the masterpiece in and of itself. I didn’t know. No one knew. This is not that story. That story was only a tale I was following from afar. Yet everything is connected.
This rumour was mainly pursued by experts in the field. Some of these experts recounted inexplicable occurrences. Such as discovering a scan in a particular archive, feeling it to be a major discovery, but upon returning to the archive later the same day no longer being able to find it. From memory they parsed what they could from their short time spent examining it. A story about a soldier who, when ordered to fire at the enemy, instead turns around and shoots his commanding officer dead. A clear act of treason followed by the other soldiers spontaneously bursting into applause.
Did that archival scan actually disappear? Was it a fiction? A hallucination? A boast? A poem? A good story you might tell at a cocktail party?
The feeling that something has been lost. That people used to know something we no longer seem to know. A parallel or mirror feeling to the anxiety there might not be much of a future. A past that existed yet feels unknown and a future that might not exist and therefore feel equally unknown. To imagine that someone broke into the archive and stole the scan. To hide something. To cover their tracks. To create a mystery. To whittle down the available evidence. Or for no reason at all.
Anyone can say that something was there but now it’s gone. Anyone can say they found a clue which later left them clueless. There are probably only twenty or thirty people in the entire world who are intensely interested in this topic. I am not one of them. More of a casual observer. Occasionally observing from afar. Years go by when I don’t think about it at all and then something happens. As if someone had taken my life, turned it upside down, given it a good shake, and what fell out is a reminder of this questionably lost masterpiece.
For reasons we already know, this was a time of general mourning. (Every time is a time of general mourning.) So many people I knew continued to pretend everything was okay. With such people it was as if we didn’t even have a shared language. I spoke a language of general mourning and they spoke a language of everything being okay. I continuously wondered if they really thought everything was okay or were only pretending. It is unlikely we will ever have a shared language. But it can nonetheless happen for brief moments in certain, specific situations.
*
My ancestors were oppressors. This does not make me unique. I don’t particularly want to tell you about them. Maybe I will later. (Maybe not.) This isn’t a story about them, isn’t a story about anyone. It is a story about certain specific events. Events that happen all the time. How I tell you about these events will determine how you understand them. This is my basic understanding of narration. I will try to change your mind at the same time as you’re trying to change mine. If you strongly disagree, if you throw this book across the room in protest, to my mind that is also a valid reading. Even indifference is valid. I used to read every single book I picked up from beginning to end. That was a different time. Now I often abandon books halfway through. I no longer want to know what happens. What happens is often less interesting than what I imagine. And what happens in my life is often less interesting than what I desire.
*
During the final game of the world cup, the star player decides to score on his own team’s goal as an act of treason. The crowd is stunned, dead quiet. In less than a split second he is no longer a star. Another thing about this time, I was thinking a great deal about conversion experiences. I wanted something along those lines for myself and I wanted to trigger something similar in others. Often what you want to do, or what you think you’re doing, is not what you’re actually doing. You’re doing something else. That something else might be what you actually want to do, rather than what you think you want to do. But these two possibilities need not be in opposition. One of my goals was to bring them closer together. Was this the goal of my team or did it belong to the opposing one? I can never stop thinking about that hypothetical soldier who turned around and shot his own commanding officer. An example as compelling as it is rare. You only have a split second to succeed. If you miss you are already dead.
*
A fragment, even the rumour of a fragment, makes you wonder: what were the other things that once surrounded it.
*
It began with wandering. We rejected the idea of a destination. We thought of such wandering as equivalent to having a light touch. Yet there was also another aspect: we were not prepared. We undertook such wandering without a map, so to speak. We didn’t know where we were, and hoped such unknowledge would allow us to see at least certain things with fresh eyes. We mostly kept to ourselves; we didn’t wish to impose. There is not an end. The whole thing is the end. We did our best to open ourselves to places through pure observation. There was a group of us. What exactly was the arrangement we’d arrived at? Only one or two of us knew about the lost masterpiece. If it was two, those two were unable to agree on any of the specific details. We would plant things as we went. Things that might continue to grow year after year without tending. Some day someone might be able to trace our route through such plantings, yet why would they? And that would mean we were interested in posterity, which we were not. We were interested in wandering.
*
[Unfinished.]
.
The beginning could also be the end. The idea of a lost masterpiece was of course alluring. But was there one? Did it actually exist? Perhaps the rumour was the work. Setting up the rumour was the masterpiece in and of itself. I didn’t know. No one knew. This is not that story. That story was only a tale I was following from afar. Yet everything is connected.
This rumour was mainly pursued by experts in the field. Some of these experts recounted inexplicable occurrences. Such as discovering a scan in a particular archive, feeling it to be a major discovery, but upon returning to the archive later the same day no longer being able to find it. From memory they parsed what they could from their short time spent examining it. A story about a soldier who, when ordered to fire at the enemy, instead turns around and shoots his commanding officer dead. A clear act of treason followed by the other soldiers spontaneously bursting into applause.
Did that archival scan actually disappear? Was it a fiction? A hallucination? A boast? A poem? A good story you might tell at a cocktail party?
The feeling that something has been lost. That people used to know something we no longer seem to know. A parallel or mirror feeling to the anxiety there might not be much of a future. A past that existed yet feels unknown and a future that might not exist and therefore feel equally unknown. To imagine that someone broke into the archive and stole the scan. To hide something. To cover their tracks. To create a mystery. To whittle down the available evidence. Or for no reason at all.
Anyone can say that something was there but now it’s gone. Anyone can say they found a clue which later left them clueless. There are probably only twenty or thirty people in the entire world who are intensely interested in this topic. I am not one of them. More of a casual observer. Occasionally observing from afar. Years go by when I don’t think about it at all and then something happens. As if someone had taken my life, turned it upside down, given it a good shake, and what fell out is a reminder of this questionably lost masterpiece.
For reasons we already know, this was a time of general mourning. (Every time is a time of general mourning.) So many people I knew continued to pretend everything was okay. With such people it was as if we didn’t even have a shared language. I spoke a language of general mourning and they spoke a language of everything being okay. I continuously wondered if they really thought everything was okay or were only pretending. It is unlikely we will ever have a shared language. But it can nonetheless happen for brief moments in certain, specific situations.
*
My ancestors were oppressors. This does not make me unique. I don’t particularly want to tell you about them. Maybe I will later. (Maybe not.) This isn’t a story about them, isn’t a story about anyone. It is a story about certain specific events. Events that happen all the time. How I tell you about these events will determine how you understand them. This is my basic understanding of narration. I will try to change your mind at the same time as you’re trying to change mine. If you strongly disagree, if you throw this book across the room in protest, to my mind that is also a valid reading. Even indifference is valid. I used to read every single book I picked up from beginning to end. That was a different time. Now I often abandon books halfway through. I no longer want to know what happens. What happens is often less interesting than what I imagine. And what happens in my life is often less interesting than what I desire.
*
During the final game of the world cup, the star player decides to score on his own team’s goal as an act of treason. The crowd is stunned, dead quiet. In less than a split second he is no longer a star. Another thing about this time, I was thinking a great deal about conversion experiences. I wanted something along those lines for myself and I wanted to trigger something similar in others. Often what you want to do, or what you think you’re doing, is not what you’re actually doing. You’re doing something else. That something else might be what you actually want to do, rather than what you think you want to do. But these two possibilities need not be in opposition. One of my goals was to bring them closer together. Was this the goal of my team or did it belong to the opposing one? I can never stop thinking about that hypothetical soldier who turned around and shot his own commanding officer. An example as compelling as it is rare. You only have a split second to succeed. If you miss you are already dead.
*
A fragment, even the rumour of a fragment, makes you wonder: what were the other things that once surrounded it.
*
It began with wandering. We rejected the idea of a destination. We thought of such wandering as equivalent to having a light touch. Yet there was also another aspect: we were not prepared. We undertook such wandering without a map, so to speak. We didn’t know where we were, and hoped such unknowledge would allow us to see at least certain things with fresh eyes. We mostly kept to ourselves; we didn’t wish to impose. There is not an end. The whole thing is the end. We did our best to open ourselves to places through pure observation. There was a group of us. What exactly was the arrangement we’d arrived at? Only one or two of us knew about the lost masterpiece. If it was two, those two were unable to agree on any of the specific details. We would plant things as we went. Things that might continue to grow year after year without tending. Some day someone might be able to trace our route through such plantings, yet why would they? And that would mean we were interested in posterity, which we were not. We were interested in wandering.
*
[Unfinished.]
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May 7, 2024
protest music
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The fact that it's Macklemore who's bringing the protest music wasn't on my bingo card: HIND’S HALL.
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The fact that it's Macklemore who's bringing the protest music wasn't on my bingo card: HIND’S HALL.
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