There was an old woman at the back of the library. She had a hat.
I wondered if she was homeless.
I took my books to check out.
The librarian asked me if I knew who the bag lady was.
No idea.
“That’s Annie Dillard.”
My mouth fell open. My mouth fell open.
“The line of words is a hammer. You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere. After giving many years’ attention to these things, you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls; they have to stay, or everything will fall down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. It cannot be helped. There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it out. Duck.
You can waste a year worrying about it, or you can get it over with now. So it is that a writer writes many books. In each book, he intended several urgent and vivid points, many of which he sacrificed as the book’s form hardened. Something completely necessary [in your writing] is false or fatal. Once you find it, and if you can accept the finding, of course it will mean starting again. This is why many experienced writers urge young men and women to learn a useful trade. Putting a book together is interesting and exhilarating.” “There are many manuscripts already—worthy ones, most edifying and moving ones, intelligent and powerful ones.
If you believed Paradise Lost to be excellent, would you buy it? Why not shoot yourself, actually, rather than finish one more excellent manuscript on which to gag the world? Out of a human population on earth of four and a half billion, perhaps twenty people can write a book in a year. Some people lift cars, too. Some people enter week-long sled-dog races, go over Niagara Falls in barrels, fly planes through the Arc de Triomphe. Some people feel no pain in childbirth. Some people eat cars. There is no call to take human extremes as norms. On plenty of days the writer can write three or four pages, and on plenty of other days he concludes he must throw them away.
A pile of decent work behind him, no matter how small, fuels the writer’s hope, too; his pride emboldens and impels him. Fiction writers who toss up their arms helplessly because their characters ‘take over’—powerful rascals, what is a god to do?—refer, I think, to these structural mysteries that seize any serious work, whether or not it possesses fifth-column characters who wreak havoc from within.
Sometimes part of a book simply gets up and walks away. The writer cannot force it back into place. It wanders off to die. The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, and it smells good. Writing is mere writing, literature is mere. It appeals only to the subtlest senses—the imagination’s vision, and the imagination’s hearing—and the moral sense, and the intellect.
You do not like filmed car chases? See if you can turn away. Try not to watch. Even knowing you are manipulated, you are still as helpless as the male butterfly drawn to painted cardboard. Even when passages seemed to come easily, as though I were copying from a folio held open by smiling angels, the manuscript revealed the usual signs of struggle—bloodstains, teethmarks, gashes, and burns.
This night I was concentrating on the chapter. The horizon of my consciousness was the contracted circle of yellow light inside my study—the lone lamp in the enormous, dark library. How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days…A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern. There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.
Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading—that is a good life. Often, [Jack London] slept through the alarm, so, by his own account, he rigged it to drop a weight on his head. I cannot say I believe this, though a novel like The Sea-Wolf is strong evidence that some sort of weight fell on his head with some sort of frequency—but you wouldn’t think a man would claim credit for it.
I understand you’re married,’ a man said to me at a formal lunch in New York my publisher had arranged. ‘How do you have time to write a book?’
Thoreau said that his firewood warmed him twice—because he labored to cut his own. Mine froze me twice, for the same reason.” “Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. This explains why so many books describe the author’s childhood. A writer’s childhood may well have been the occasion of his only firsthand experience.
Why people want to be writers I will never know, unless it is that their lives lack a material footing. There was a tiny range within which coffee was effective, short of which it was useless, and beyond which, fatal.” “Many fine people were out there living, people whose consciences permitted them to sleep at night despite their not having written a decent sentence that day, or ever.
Brian said (admiringly, I thought), ‘Did you write that story?’ I started to answer, when he continued, ‘Or did you type it? But you are wrong if you think that in the actual writing, or in the actual painting, you are filling in the vision. You cannot fill in the vision. You cannot even bring the vision to light. You are wrong if you think that you can in any way take the vision and tame it to the page. The page is jealous and tyrannical; the page is made of time and matter; the page always wins.
The vision is not so much destroyed, exactly, as it is, by the time you have finished, forgotten. It has been replaced by this changeling, this bastard, this opaque lightless chunky ruinous work.
The work is not the vision itself, certainly. Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients.That is, after all, the case.” “[The writer] is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, because that is what he will know.” “Further, writing sentences is difficult whatever the subject. It is no less difficult to write sentences in a recipe than sentences in Moby-Dick. So you might as well write Moby-Dick.
Writing every book, the writer must solve two problems: Can it be done? and, Can I do it? Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which is writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles. Push it. Examine all things intensely and relentlessly. Probe and search each object in a piece of art. Do not leave it, do not course over it, as if it were understood, but instead follow it down until you see it in the mystery of its own specificity and strength. Admire the world from never ending on you—as you would admire an opponent, without taking your eyes from him, or walking away.
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to send it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.
These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
https://tim-barrus.format.com/
Sex, Pornography, Resistance
by Tim Barrus
I have lived through all of this before.
The day I turned 16, I finally had my license, I could now drive young men (16, they lie a lot, and we wanted them to). Over the Blue Water Bridge to Canada. They rode in the front seat, sweating. Sometimes they cried. That sense of leaving everything behind. It was a diaspora, then. It is a diaspora now. Get a clue. We had the War in Vietnam so we could end up with a murderous King in all my books. It’s a fantasy, right. Right and ready. The poor are usually the cannon fodder.
They would sit in the seat beside me as I drove. Fingers wrestled tight to fingers. A ball of fists.
"Do you know where you're going."
They all asked this question.
I never answered it. Who knows where they are going. We only know where we think we might go.
"How old are you."
I never answered that question either.
I was sixteen and had no idea how to talk to these guys. Driving them to Canada was mostly silence.
I left them on the steps of a church.
I tried to narrow my focus and see only what I had to see.
I knew that knowing a face might mean you could describe it. You learn what to know is dangerous, and what only looks dangerous.
These guys were dangerous. They felt dangerous. We were doing something dangerous. Danger had everything to do with this path of war resistance.
It’s called sub-atomic cannon fodder. Without cannon fodder, all would be lost. Military Academy Historical Terminology. Not mine. I may not be all that gay, not fiction gay, but real gay. Not infamous gay. Maybe a little infamous (opinionated) gay. Why is that important. These literal dick yardsticks are the real pornography. I smile and nod a lot. Nevertheless, I know and love gay men. I’m allowed. Is there an entrance exam. They can demean me, and they have, usually gay writers most of whom seem terribly bitter. I get regularly trounced for Drummer Photography. Like I had anything to do with Drummer. Or the drum sticks. I love all gay people. I am so sorry you have to keep fighting this fight. Why are you here. On this planet. The time has come again. We need you. Again and again.
I did another deep dive into how it all went down. It’s very busy down there and it’s more than a little distraught. Do you really think the Deviant isn’t coming for you. The deviant has been salivating to kill all of you, every last one, but there is a financial caste system in your hierarchies, they do not empower you, they make it hard for you to leave the bubble. Every uprising has one. A bubble with your name on it. You know the score, the more you got the more you need. It’s not just a financial one. Money is power.
So is civil disobedience. On steroids.
Only peaceful hard as hell resistance.
Choose sides. It’s time. You know it’s time again. It has arrived. You are not alone. It’s not hard to know where to begin. The guru’s participation in the Battle of Potidaea during the Peloponnesian War is notably recorded by Plato. But it was Socrates who demonstrated extraordinary resilience during this campaign, enduring harsh conditions and remaining steadfast under siege. His composure under adversity was as much a reflection of his philosophical endurance as his physical fortitude. It was during this campaign that he saved the life of Alcibiades.
Power is blood.
Power brokers know that. Sometimes you have to tie them up and gag them. Power brokers are not unlike human traffickers.
Sounds like a porn film pitch. Let’s make some. Sounds like literary pornography.
Turn sex itself — simply to defy authority — into a political act. Fuck wherever you want. Flaunt his laws, I didn’t write that. The computer did it. I said where. Not. Whoever. Or when. I never said marches as a tidal wave on Christmas day, take the kids. No fans. Give me a beak, fans. You look light weight, ladies. I know you are not like that. Sitting there with Mrs Beezley and her hot hand and Mint Julep. Be kind. Start fucking everyone (who consents) you say: Wanna Fuck. They will say yes. No one cares. The National Guard would attack. I have seen them pull people from cars and beat the shit out of them. If your skin is dark enough, authority will find you. If you lock your car door, they will break the glass. I pray for a peace. You boys, come over here, and sit by me. Fuck at every opportunity, and then film it, and then, write it up, every lick. Give them a headache. Send it to everyone. Flood the government with fucking. Fucking projected on the walls. They will beat your artist head in with a leaden club. One hit will kill you.
They wear facial recognition. They know who you are, then and there even as they castrate your brain while you beg for more. De Sade was not state sanctioned. He had his own way with a thousand of their wives. Heads flew off the shelves, and then the plague Number Ten arrived. Dig a ditch. Satire is protected speech — everyone, go haha — like are you kidding me.
Reminder: Satire or are you illiterate. The best artists go straight to porn but the straight part is momentary.
Smile and nod. Smile and nod. Step out of the Hollywood’s Timid Bubble or Mothers In Arms will smote you down smote you down, you all, they got dogs this time, too. Run for your lives. They will set the fire. It’s a comedy. I wrote a comedy where lawyers send their money - all of it, queen — all of it. To the hurly burly of the massive so massive that you can me see fucking from outer space. Down the drain in Spain.
The Normals will go on the fucking guillotine war path. Bring on the wrath of Beelzeebub. Arrest us all. Caste and class. Always and forever. They all have assistants and they are the whipmasters of Beverly Hills. You bet, the maid left her apron.
The Resistance will be challenged by the word we must but fuck that, it’s money. The NYPL has a suck system is this plastic thing for a sperm sample to be whisked and schwooped to the bowels of the basement where you are fully aware of having been trashed for illegal fantasies by the BAR but why are you in the basement and I want my book. So Witomski.
It’s time to hit the streets and you gotta leave the office, oh, yes, you do. Get on that sidewalk like they do in all my books where I don’t tell anyone what do do. TR is dead.
“All books have been banned today. Stop it! I just work here why is everyone fucking for fuck sake.” I have been declared a jerk off King of Deloris Duke University. A wanted college boy fugitive who came just one too many times a day.”
The Resistance has to say to itself — here and now — that military rank has no street creds.
That it has to choose who side they will be on. The Constitution they swore to uphold may be an antique but, but, asshole, it’s doable. The killing begins, in my novel anyway, novels being fiction, not unlike science fiction that take up a lot of room.
Write pornography because they have full-fledged-hedged eyes popping out of their heads — but your children are looking with some awe before you grabbed them by wedgie and took them home. Your real home is with us, and make no mistake, this time they aim to kill us. In my books, my characters, articulate that over and over. They say: Make No Mistakes. Make No Mistakes. This is only a book. This is just fiction. Just fiction, folks. Nothing to see here. You all, just go home, Cher.
I can never figure out how my fictional characters who resemble no one, the living or the dead, especially the dead somehow, they are dramatic icons on stakes.
Internet.
Write pornography. Fuck your brains out. Save your condoms so other men can use them. Someone in the next stall starts lecturing Doctor Lector: How Big Is Your Dick.
Write pornography. Learn to make sex love — but try just loving sex. It can expand what you know. No one can buy that.
Become invaluable to The Resistance. If you can’t find it, grow some fucking balls and build your own from the ground and what you do with that statue what statue, oh, woe is me. My bad. I said balls. Some child in the Bay Area Reporter Reported that I must be prohibited in the Virgin Mary Town Square and boiled in oil but my dick didn’t fit so they cut it off.
Now, there’s a real stinger of a film. It’s the film community that’s a lot of shit. You can’t do John Waters. You have to go full-blown Liz Tayor eats Marilynn Monroe and gives me all the rights.
What the Deviant wants (in my book) is theatre. Good friend, your travels will find your purest wife and the owner of the Village Inn, a venue for Play of Plays, we perform sex on a trapeze and anyone can ride it, if you please.
Will someone please explain art to these ill-informed proletariats. I am a communist. Kiss my royal ass. All communists write fiction and nothing but fiction. Never trust a communist. We have measles feezles sneezes. No time like a pandemic originated from the malls of Florida. You will wish you had been nice to us in this fantasy that will never get air time in California. Out on my ear again. I kid Bill Mahr.
The Deviant will arrive with a fire house mushroom head. Remind them that they serve us. Cut. Print. I am allowed, let me repeat it because you’ll be arrested but what a gig, eh. It was the wigs. Those wigs pissed off King George, too. I can’t remember, Cher, who wore what wigs. And that was a fatty suit. You know, the billionaire crook with the ridiculous crown clown lipstick. You go home, get dinner ready, sit down with the family after a gay prayerhoover. Invite Jane. I will bet the ranch she’ll show up. He only knows massive. It has to be massive. You gotta use all the symbols, that’s exactly how I write novels, like Genocide. A virus sends another virus into a timeline. Pick one. That one. Do it now. You have to jerk off in a test tube. Just do it. When you’re deceased you will be glad you did. Is the prayerhoover over. No. Break it up.
I see a film. De Sade scares them. People might run around the streets of London and have sex (I said loving sex, so vanilla) there will be no vanilla and there will only be art in a movie about a movie about having sex everywhere in the universe. I don’t know who I am. The Queen of Zsa Zsa Venus. Bealah, peel me a bitch. Who are you looking at, little man. I signed a nda on myself so if I break it just hang me and that can be the end of the film. Go home.
The Normals are going to lose this one because this resistance is a cosmic snake because it has to be. Hey, we are the writers a dead writer is one less writer to worry about, did we owe him money. They can kill us but they cannot win. They cannot stop us from telling stupid ass joke which we would never do. Beaula, peel me me a flag. Few antiques will be worth keeping. I said this in my book, The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping.
I am a communist. The whole Let's Have More Babies fetish is a hay ride I cannot jump on. Babies in poverty is so unfair. We are worth more than that. Why is slavery always the answer. Just telling me that humanity will rot doesn't make it through the filters of all my second selves. Being in the here and now -- is all I can do -- and it takes power, love, apprehension, and cash. It's the cash part that gets tricky. I have a secret. I have this terrible habit, and moral failure, because I cannot help myself from counting cards. I have no idea why I do that. It might be the money. My autistic masks do work. Ross seems to have a question that I share. I go up to people and I ask them why they are here.
Not here at church. Not here at home with family. Not here at school. Not here at work. But here. On the ground. In the trenches. And why are you here at the beginning of the extinction. People look at me like I am mad. Bring it on. Sometimes, I ask them how much money they have. We are all waiting for Godot. Ross is here (not a criticism) to immerse himself into the glow of family, god, the house of god, and a vision of where the world is going. We do not agree. But I can recognize authenticity when I see it. I just can't share it. The reality is that my life, and the lives of many other people, get the rug pulled out from under them in that deliberate debate where icons reflect conflicts in values, yet you are alone in the here and now and drowning in the culture of hatred.