Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

Ireland. Photo by Douglas Pinson. 2003

I had thought to write a post, intro­duc­ing a new char­ac­ter, the Prophet. Something utterly orig­i­nal, a new slant, a strange, effec­tive begin­ning. But upon reread­ing the post, I could see that it was too obvi­ous, too didac­tic, too con­trived. And while Art is always “con­trived” in a sense, it should never show that part of itself. It should never be obvious.

So, how to write a new series of “wis­dom” lit­er­a­ture? How to include a new kind of prophet, one who turns ancient texts upside down? Or, rather, turns Nietzsche upside down after he tor­tured the ancient texts this way and that. Turns Kafka upside down after he drove the Talmud meshugah. Turns Dogen upside down after he stretched and bun­dled and merged Indian Buddhism with Chinese Taoism. Turns Marx and Van Gogh and Freud into pret­zels after they whipped class, nature and the uncon­scious into dynamite.

And how to do all of this with­out drop­ping names like they’re bloody going out of style?

No. No. No!!! I’m not ask­ing for much. Just every­thing and noth­ing. Just an end to all oppo­sites — because that’s what I always do. You know, the usual fare. Five for a dol­lar. Except on Tuesdays, when we throw in angst and ennui as a belated, albeit oblig­a­tory, hosanna. That is, if it’s not rain­ing cats and dogs, in which case we break out the ukele­les and rock out like The Rolling Zeppelins!!

I am for­ever in your debt, Boris Vian …

Blessed are the secret shar­ers, for they know the mean­ing of life.
Blessed are the art­fully indi­rect, for they com­pel oth­ers to ques­tion themselves.

 

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