Illumine

I’m trying to tie up a few of the loose ends slipping adrift in my head. All I want is to write something that can wedge a screwdriver into the crack of seeming and flail at the handle till something breaks.

I love this interview with David Berman of the Silver Jews. You can skip approximately the first half of it (start from about ‘How many times did you have to rebuild these songs …?’), but then it starts to get good as he talks about the obsessive craft of his songs (then continue at ‘Which happiness do you feel make room for?’ and read to the end). Particularly:

‘The thing you always hear is, “I don’t want to ruin other people’s interpretation of the song … I want it to mean as much as possible to as many people as possible. I want to diffuse the whole meaning through every possible permutation.” Y’know, like there’s some complexity like that in there? … it’s just an avoidance of admitting the fact that nothing is intended.’

Love it.

I discovered Silver Jews earlier this year, since he seems to be one of those people who people are either obsessive fanpeople about, or haven’t heard of. The third category is people who don’t like that he kinda can’t sing, and instead verbally lopes and stumbles around notes.

But damn can he write:

I love to see a rainbow from a garden hose
lit up like the blood of a centerfold
I love the city and the city rain,
suburban kids with biblical names.

People ask people to watch their scotch.
People send people up to the moon.
When they return, well there isn’t much.
People be careful not to crest too soon.

The drums march along at the clip of an I.V. drip
like sparks from a muffler dragged down the strip.
I really hope you’ll come around.

The Hordern is by reputation the worst big venue in Sydney, and as soon as we get there they do their best to prove it.

Security Guard: ‘You’re going to have to empty that drink bottle.’ (Fair enough.)

Security Guard 2: ‘You’re going to have to throw out that drink bottle.’ (Uh … no. M. loves her Nalgene bottle.)

Security Guard 3: ‘You’re going to have to cloak that bottle. And bag. And that’s $2.50.’ (Guh.)

Thankfully, the night gets better from there. We catch Pivot’s last song, and I have to admit that I don’t find their Tortoise cum Battles sound particularly inspired. And has anyone tried to scientifically explain yet why keyboard players will always look dorky? (see This Is Spinal Tap)

After some feet-tapping, a familiar ping like a sonar rings out and people cheer. A tall man called Jonsi walks out onto the stage. And he begins with that keening hope of a voice and then the bowed guitar sounds out reverbing and swathing out amongst us all and we are away.

It’s a glorious thing. The band is a four-piece but sound like four thousand. Twice during the set, Jonsi hits a high note and holds it there, for a minute, and the rest of the band goes quiet and still it hangs there like a silver thread and we are gasping taking breaths for him but he holds it and holds it unquaveringly pitch-perfect until finally inevitably inhumanly, he stops. Probably more for our sake than his own.

At another point, on one of their new songs I think, the four of them pause, a brief lull in their constant climaxes, and a brass band marches onto the stage, replete with ridiculous uniforms, wending their way through the xylophones and guitar amps and keyboards and blasting away all the while.

It’s almost too much at times. Dizzying. Through another climax the lights strobe like they just can’t contain themselves any more and a panic runs all through you, as the music turns and turns again like a rollercoaster with nowhere to go but ever upwards.

In a shocking move today, the Chinese government announced at a press conference that the Olympics was all an elaborate ruse. ‘We are concern that all these stupid athlete spend too much time playing sport. Not e-nough time doing their study. Whoever heard of someone making money and feeding they family by playing sport. Whoever heard someone pay for private school education by throwing a stick, hey? They have think about they own future.’ announced the Chinese Minister for ‘Sport’.

‘If only they spent as much time study as they do running around that silly field.’ continued the Minister. ‘They would have top marks now. It’s not about all the stupid medal. They get into good universty, I get them all the medal they want. Is for their own good. Rather than running around with all these bad people. Probably taking drug.’

The athletes shuffled their feet and declined to comment.

I arrive at New College early to help with registrations. Kathleen is there already, as unfailingly friendly and smiley as ever. I man the rego desk for a while. Bec comes to help. More familiar faces pass by: Ben, Ali, C. Dave, Joe from Anglican Media, Carol, Katie, and I’m sure there’s others I’ve forgotten for the moment.

Soon, things begin. Trevor introduces Mark. I read the Little Red Writing Book last year and have to admit that I liked it, but didn’t love it. He says some good and helpful things (particularly about sentence-craft) but there were points at which it seemed, distracted by the beauty of his own prose and the act of image-gathering, he rambles around the point, rather than getting to it. His talk is similar.

He talks about ‘mending the nets’: working on the craft and grind of writing so that you’re ready to capture inspiration when it strikes. He talks about writing itself as an ‘act of faith’. That writing is ‘more about the telling than the tale’. Which is, unfortunately, a little dubious.

After that, I check to see if Karen needs any help and she doesn’t so we go to get coffee and do writing. This is part of what I write:

Maybe this is all relationships. We all give our love like Trojan Horses. Traps designed as offerings, for to sneak our terrorists inside, under the cover of darkness and generosity. Presents and gestures we wrap with ribbons and barbed hooks. The showcase of surrender as the last defiant act of war.

Yes, I was feeling a bit grey and cynical how could you possibly tell?

Later in the day: we workshop some of the pieces. Concentrate on sentences. Pare it back. Let the nouns and verbs do the work, use adverbs and adjectives lightly. There are various workshops. Greg reads some silly, funny things. Bec reads her wonderful story from her wonderful book. And Mark finishes with some poetry.

Before we leave, I meet Sandra J (one of my first, and the friendliest of, blog commenters!) and her friend Honoria. And then we go to dinner and to see an Icelandic band.

So in a terribly roundabout kind of train of thought, I started another blog in order to be more productive.

One of the good things about Illumine Version the Last, was that it automatically collected links from my Del.icio.us feed as posts. One of the bad things about Illumine Version the Last, was that it automatically collected links from my Del.icio.us feed as posts. Bad in that it quickly showed up my lack of blogging when the entire front page was only full of links.

It’s the constant blogger’s question: ‘How do I output more of me?’ (Without resorting to posting about foot infections and so forth.) On one hand, I wanted the headspace to write posts of a particular standard. On the other hand, I spend enough time each day just poking around the internet, usually while in conversation with certain parties.

The answer I’ve come up with, at least for the moment, you can see on the left (assuming you’re not reading by RSS): a tumblelog. Inspired in me in good part by the beautiful Rach M.’s Title Page and We Shall Shortly, a tumblelog is a anything-goes kind of mish-mash of quick-fire thoughts, links, graphic-grabs etc. We’ve called it Falling Down.

And I say ‘we’ because my co-conspirator on Falling Down will be the wonderful Bec, mostly by virtue of how she keeps saying yes when I propose things which are patently absurd.

So this’ll mean a) more loose, frequent, silly and sometimes bewildering posts over there for those who want it. b) Hopefully that playfulness outlet will mean more headspace for written posts (like posts about Faithful Writer and Sigur Ros which are coming soon). c) Regularly updated stuff on the front page for those who constantly reload it again and again and again.

I’m struggling to put one word in front of the other. Or one thought next to another. Much less a thought with words in. Arrived back from MYC last week. And MYC was frustrating and joyous and satisfying and then. And then. Then spent the time since then ‘recovering’. Well, I guess ‘recover’ is kind of right, in the literal sense of ‘to cover again’. Only I seemed to be covered mostly in a kind of greyness. A melancholy that melanchols right down to the bone.

I knew this year would be hard, but what do you do about that? You pray, and you hope. And in between, mostly you ache … ?

Dear /Karen/,

I was going to say all of this in a card but it somehow seems more real and appropriate to do it in the form that you’ve stored so much of your life in. That you’ve taught me so much about. And it’s not just blogging, of course.

But I also mean in terms of teaching me about writing, about writing as a passion in itself, the pleasure of words and sentences in well-formed, orderly lines. That there was no shame in regarding stonking great fantasy books as literature, that fairy tales were worthy of study, and that encouraging the march of words, one after another, could be a ministry, pursued and pursuer as such: word by word. (And of course you were the first person to tell me about Neil. Back when you must have been 22, maybe 23. I was amazed that two people as young as you and Ben could be married and yet so wonderfully full of life.)

And about writing as communication and encouragement. I know you still have every email that was sent; I don’t, and I regret that. But I do remember that they were usually long and full of interesting detail (‘I’m writing this on the train back from Wollongong and oh bother I’m about to run out of battery.’ goes one half-remembered, possibly apocryphal, fragment.) They were always beautifully written. And looking back I wonder what the me of that age could have possibly had that might have been half as interesting as what you had to say. In fact I doubt I did. And I doubt that really mattered to you because that’s the kind of grace that you live by.

And not just letters. I remember the long card you wrote to us when M and I got married, which was refreshing and honest and changed the way I went about this husband thing. I remember the letter you left at the front desk of MYC which was funny and unexpected and touching. I remember the card you wrote me, on the inside of a metal, clasped, address book the day that I left Matthias Media that was everything I needed to hear. And so many, many more.

And in the light of all that correspondence, I think sometimes I’m a bit too overwhelmed to respond properly. Like I could never hope to write as clearly as you did, or with such a fine sense of balance. With an eye for detail and not a hint of excess. Or like it would take years to try and redress the imbalance in my direction in terms of words written, or value gained.

But I guess I can make a start, a small dent in this arms race of verbosity. So: /Karen/ on this occasion of your thirtieth birthday: thank you for being who you are. For being a brilliant writer, a constant, faithful friend and a wonderful (giggly) sister.

In Christ,

Guan

Crannies of safety that this country tucks away. Here you are, and the sea breeze feathers at your worries, ruffling the edges, setting them flapping like bits of old black and white and then finally lifting them. Setting them free.

The sky is gentle and deep. The sun is steady like a hand on your shoulder. Laughter and conversation, both musical, echo through the house. The inlet at the beach snakes around like it’s trying a new hairstyle. Three pictures of pandas on the wall bewildered at being transported to the beachside.

This is how we rest with other people doing ministry. A solemnity of shared responsibility. A zone of exclusion. ‘We’re not allowed to talk about MTS. So we’re not allowed to talk about people.’ says someone.

‘And I’m not going to read the Bible for more than fifteen minutes.’ someone jokes.

After lunch and unpacking, by mutual consensus we drift towards deckchairs and lay and lay in the sun. Spines: Austen, Picoult, Lewis, Murakami (mine) and Austen again (on a dare).

At the end of the path we duck down a hidden way and there’s a cave that becomes a tunnel and we clamber in. We kind of crab walk and we kind of crawl. A crack beneath our feet is inches tall and as we follow it out it kind of widens and tumbles and deepens to a crevice you can’t see the bottom of.

But you look up, and there’s this platform on the rock, dotted with tiny holes, and a view of the ocean that stretches from end to endless end.

‘I just … don’t like dangerous situations.’ says K, and sits well away from the edge. The rest of us take up positions a little way from each other. We dangle our feet and watch the ocean, like we’re waiting for something, like we’d be content if it didn’t come just yet.

It’s so open and peaceful. There is nothing you can do to matter here. Like a chance to hold an internal breath, and the relief you feel when you get rid of existential hiccups that you didn’t know you had.

The sky, at the edge of it, shines with a metallic glee. Clouds float by like disinterested partygoers, cocktails and polite, edging, small talk.

‘My physicalness … we’re pretty small.’ Someone says out loud. I’m not sure who.

Today I went to Bondi Junction. (Where the fashion for ladies over fifty seems to be ‘as bizarrely as possible’: headscarfs with hair protruding at architect angles, fractions of their body swathed in drunk colours.)

I listened to Joe Henry and, in particular ‘Our Song’, over again and again.

‘But it’s my right if the worst of it might still Somehow make me a better man’

Josie said Sometimes the CBT thing can be a bit mechanistic and I nodded and thought a bit like setting model trains to run into one another. And she said Maybe you could try something like listing the things that bring heavyness and instead ask a question like What ways of living in this world would I prefer?  

And I thought what an almost-awkward and beautiful question.

Or she continued What do I notice today that is beautiful or special? It could even be a prayer.

Afterwards I noticed a custard tart in about three bites. The pastry crumbled like the wrapping paper between right and wrong and the filling tasted sweet and almost selfish like a good secret that you haven’t been able to share yet.

So, via Bec: Wordle. Complete with almost-an-actual-word Web 2.0 name, Wordle generates sweet-looking text clouds based on whatever input you point it towards.

So I pointed it towards my diary. I’m not a regular diary keeper, I’m sure I’ve started at least seven. But as part of the confluence of the work and training I’m doing in MTS, and the other work I’m doing at Matthias Media, I’ve been trying to keep a journal of the experience. It’s been frustrating and interesting to try and capture all of the ‘MTS thing’ but hopefully it will be helpful to somebody in the end.

Anyway, I can’t sure any of the diary quite yet, but what I can do is show you this, slightly worrying, snapshot of what the diary so far looks like in Wordle. I say slightly worrying because ‘pray’ (not to mention ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’) are so small. And ‘rest’ doesn’t even appear.

(Click to see the larger version.)