Splitting hairs and other meaningless distinctions
(groupers are a kind of fish)
Pass the popcorn!
I’ve been out a lot this week. Anniversary dinner, birthdays, meeting with mentors and meetings with mentees (funny how it is so easy to be both—are we always experts and novices simultaneously? I think wisdom might come from knowing the answer to this.) Dissolving into familiar laughter with longtime friends, and my personal favorite: business acquaintances who demand an in-person meeting then change the time because they have conflicts and then change the location because it is no longer convenient for them and then change the in-person meeting to a zoom and finally ask you by email what you wanted from them…all on the same thread.
And I went to an outdoor movie (see photo, above). I love outdoor movies. I brought a blanket and got some popcorn and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Not the least of which because it was in the shadow of Group of Four Trees (artist: Jean Dubuffet) and so when I got bored of the 90’s movie, I could stare at the art and marvel that no one was paying attention to it.
(You know what art NO ONE pays attention to? Same plaza, the Sunken Garden —it looks like a water fountain that’s broken or abandoned. It’s by the same sculptor who did Red Cube (you know the one—across from Zuccotti Park) — Isamo Noguchi. But no one knows Sunken Garden is even art.
So is it?
While out, it occurred to me that the conversations I have with strangers frequently result in my talking a lot, while the conversations I have with my dearest friends result in a lot of listening. I’m not sure why this is.
Another random thought for you: maybe humanity can be grouped into those people who believe that intelligence is indicated by how much you know at an expert level (and these are the people who do not want the world to change, who love traditions, and who generally look backwards for wisdom), while on the other hand, there are those people who believe that intelligence is indicated by how much knowledge you have that no one else has (these are the people who hunger for novelty, who want to try everything, who seek the latest articles and science, and who long to be on the cutting edge.)
I do not know which sort of person I am. Perhaps one who stands in the middle, seeing how far my arms can reach in both directions.
Writing news:
Good news this week!! My super weird post-Kaiju story “All Clear” was accepted for inclusion in the Wandering Wave Press anthology Tumbled Tales!
And in other big news, I submitted a collection of short fiction to the editor who asked me for it. (All right, all right, class, settle down.)
Now we wait.
While we wait, I’m heading up to Bard to visit my son for the weekend. It’s funny that colleges do parents’ weekends. Is it so that parents would be sure to schedule a visit or to prevent parents from dropping by all the time, do you think?
Doing most of the talking with strangers seems like a good thing, inasmuch as there is a chance that if you don't do it, there won't be any talking at all. One of my definitions of a writer is someone who has ideas at the tip of her tongue, even in the most barren of circumstances.
When you say that with your friends you are doing a lot of listening, presumably you are talking, too. You are simply playing the bridge role, and probably often asking questions, while they are telling stories and telling in general. One person has to speak, and then the other has to speak, or a conversation is dysfunctional. The number of lines on each side is the same, even if you are doing a lot of "listening," it's just that your lines are shorter. I suppose my argument is that these kinds of conversations really amount to interviews, where the "listener" is the "interviewer." I don't know if that holds water, but there it is.
Interesting that you touch on this power dynamic in the newsletter, and early had brought up mentors and mentees, which also has that connotation. My ideal is no prescribed or implied roles, and instead a meeting of equals, where the ideas stand for themselves, no matter who expresses them. But I can see that there are many situations that do call for roles. When a doctor goes as a patient to another doctor, she yields. And I suppose it makes sense when a writer yields to an editor, so that the editor can be empowered, not that there can't be some give and take. If you're taking sports lessons or music lessons, of course you yield to your instructor, and it's not a comment on your general advancement.
I'd like to comment on your theory about veneration for rigid, establishlished knowledge versus veneration for the unacknowledged, but that's enough for now. I am so glad you have this forum.