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The Fourth Sea Change
Apr. 17th, 2017 09:39 amProblem with laboring at the Scut Factory is that I don’t wanna labor at the Scut Factory.
I’m really pissed at my great-great-grandfather for not being an industrialist at the forefront of the expansion of the American steel industry, or the American tugboat industry, or the American department store so that I could inherit great wads of cash and spend my time creating great art! Or, as is more likely, Googling Real Housewives of New York backstories.
I’m restless.
That translates as discontent.
I want more money.
I want a Best Friend who lives next door and with whom I can have long, intense, caffeine-fueled conversations about Derrida and Alfred the Great and the importance of serial commas. I wanna walk the suspension bridge that separates Buda from Pest. I want lots of attention so that I can fling my forearm across my forehead and declaim dramatically: Please! Stop paying attention to me!
Most of all, I want to be possessed by the spirit of a literary wraith – maybe Dead Scott Fitzgerald who sees where he went wrong compiling architecturally perfect sentence upon architecturally perfect sentence and is open to plushing things out a little so that readers can relax mid-paragraph – and I want that wraith to finish the damn novels!
Oh, and one more thing: I want to be razor sharp at all times. I don’t want my first reaction upon coming back from hiking or running to be, Hmmm… This would be a great time for a nap.
###
Else? Yesterday was pretty much a wash. Like I say, I’m not big on Easter.
I’m thinking that the last of the Great Technological Sea Changes in my lifetime was actually the invention of streaming video. (Maria was far more visionary 20 years ago than I gave her credit for being at the time.) Who doesn’t love watching movies or long-format episodic TV? It stimulates exactly the same neural centers in the brain that dreaming does. Consequently, all you need to dream your life away is a Netflix subscription. And who’s to say that wouldn’t be a life well-spent?
In 2015, Netflix subscribers on average spent 1.5 hours every day binge-watching TV shows and bad 90s movies. In 2015, there were 75 million Netflix subscribers; by the end of 2016, there were 93 million subscribers.
Watching a film or a TV show is a far more immersive experience for most people than reading a book. Even for me in most instances – and I’m a reader. It’s the hermeneutics of written text that captivate me, primarily. That and the knowledge that an entire, complex, imagined world can emerge from the brain of just one single person. No collaboration required.
That’s why I’ve never had the slightest interest in filmmaking. That’s why all I’ve ever wanted to do is write stories. When push comes to shove, I don't work and play well with others.
I’m really pissed at my great-great-grandfather for not being an industrialist at the forefront of the expansion of the American steel industry, or the American tugboat industry, or the American department store so that I could inherit great wads of cash and spend my time creating great art! Or, as is more likely, Googling Real Housewives of New York backstories.
I’m restless.
That translates as discontent.
I want more money.
I want a Best Friend who lives next door and with whom I can have long, intense, caffeine-fueled conversations about Derrida and Alfred the Great and the importance of serial commas. I wanna walk the suspension bridge that separates Buda from Pest. I want lots of attention so that I can fling my forearm across my forehead and declaim dramatically: Please! Stop paying attention to me!
Most of all, I want to be possessed by the spirit of a literary wraith – maybe Dead Scott Fitzgerald who sees where he went wrong compiling architecturally perfect sentence upon architecturally perfect sentence and is open to plushing things out a little so that readers can relax mid-paragraph – and I want that wraith to finish the damn novels!
Oh, and one more thing: I want to be razor sharp at all times. I don’t want my first reaction upon coming back from hiking or running to be, Hmmm… This would be a great time for a nap.
###
Else? Yesterday was pretty much a wash. Like I say, I’m not big on Easter.
I’m thinking that the last of the Great Technological Sea Changes in my lifetime was actually the invention of streaming video. (Maria was far more visionary 20 years ago than I gave her credit for being at the time.) Who doesn’t love watching movies or long-format episodic TV? It stimulates exactly the same neural centers in the brain that dreaming does. Consequently, all you need to dream your life away is a Netflix subscription. And who’s to say that wouldn’t be a life well-spent?
In 2015, Netflix subscribers on average spent 1.5 hours every day binge-watching TV shows and bad 90s movies. In 2015, there were 75 million Netflix subscribers; by the end of 2016, there were 93 million subscribers.
Watching a film or a TV show is a far more immersive experience for most people than reading a book. Even for me in most instances – and I’m a reader. It’s the hermeneutics of written text that captivate me, primarily. That and the knowledge that an entire, complex, imagined world can emerge from the brain of just one single person. No collaboration required.
That’s why I’ve never had the slightest interest in filmmaking. That’s why all I’ve ever wanted to do is write stories. When push comes to shove, I don't work and play well with others.
