only he knows bigger words

I'm going to write about John Ashbery because that is what I am supposed to be doing right now anyway, only in a proper way and using good academic terms. But even though i only have about two point five hours to finish this paper, I still think it will be a better use of my time to get excited about it in an informal fashion than to just do jargon jargon jargon jargon all over the place in this sloppy Word doc. Besides, I already fell asleep three times this morning and that can't happen any more.

“I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave all out would be another, and truer, way.”

Ashbery introduces the idea of filtered experience and fragmented knowledge by proposing the alternatives—everything and nothing—as the ideal forms of truth. Although he includes two examples of leaving out (“clean washed sea” and “The flowers were.”), writing is, by default, a filtered medium of thought. Ashbery uses this discrepancy between the “ideal” form of personal truth, and the actual manifestation of identity through the external self.

(that was copy and paste)

He goes on to say that the empty space will be filled by the self--"It is you who made this, therefore you are true." This places language and the self in a sort of cycle, where one picks up where the other has left off. In order to describe how the self can operate within language, parts of identity must also be brought as close to everything and nothing as possible.


“It may become necessary…to retreat again into the hard, dark recesses of yourself where you know no comfort is to be found, but which are preferable nevertheless to this perilous position on the edge of the flood, looking down awestruck into the coiling waters that sometimes strike out and ensnare a parcel of land that had seemed secure.”

beautiful.

writing papers about things i love is both cruel and totally necessary, because i usually don't manage to love difficult things until something forces me to. too bad i don't get graded on my emotional connection to my paper.

I just don't think I should be an academic. I don't know what I would be instead though. I just want to be able to do the things i like (writing, reading, singing, cooking, etc) without some end goal in mind or a grand purpose or anything.


btw, who here reads webcomics, and which ones? i can't be the only one.