me...

i spent three-fourths of yesterwake in a Farscape marathon on the Sci-fi channel. i'd like to take a moment now to defend television. High art would like to establish an autonomy from banalities. However, every work of art presents a perspective on ordinary human existence, and the fact that television is closer to everyday life allows its perspective to be less abstract. In this way, television serves as a foil to "higher" art: HARRY: You know, Cookie, I gotta tell you, a great writer named Sophocles said that it was probably best not to be born at all. COOKIE: Well, honey, it's a little too late for that. The extent to which art attempts to be autonomous is the extent to which i dislike it. The simple truth is that there is joy and connection and benefit in every medium. And the only measure of art is life. posted by Arthur @ 6/01/2002 09:02:00 PM	Saturday, June 01, 2002
Last night i was shot almost twenty times in the chest and arms, in one of the most realistic dreams i've ever had. i have been dead before, but never dying. Until i got back to sleep, my chest held a phantom pain. Yet the experience of dying was only of secondary importance. The paramount, tragic irony of the dream was that even as i lay dying, i could not convince anyone of mortality. The extreme frustration of that metaphysical alienation felt conspicuously familiar, and i believe it explains why most of the girls i've dated have turned out to have some sort of life-threatening illness: they are better able to grasp what i have spent my life trying to impart. Death is a gift. Death is a gift. Death is a gift. Got it yet? This is not to say that i will be happy to die. But without death, life is meaningless. You may think i'm silly for being so impassioned and impatient. It is exactly that kind of proselytizing apathy i mean to unmask. Active apathy is simply the fear of loss. And if we were immortal, i'd be right with you; why risk suffering? But we have not the time to be cautious. We can't afford to not be passionate. You may die today. Or you may live. But don't hide in between. posted by Arthur @ 5/29/2002 10:58:00 AM	Wednesday, May 29, 2002
There i was: lying across my bed, wrist under my chin, pensively strumming my fingers. In the periphery of my thoughts i noticed my skin was in motion near my elbow. i experimented by slowing my fingers, and the waves slackened. My full attention was now on anatomy: strum fingers, muscles roll. In the moment, it all seemed fascinatingly inhuman, like looking inside a piano for the first time - the perfect two-step of key=note reveals itself as an intricate, beautiful waltz. And that's when i realized i had it backward; those rippling motions under my skin were actually the cause of my fingers tapping. It is exceedingly strange to be alive. posted by Arthur @ 5/28/2002 12:48:00 PM	Tuesday, May 28, 2002
i like women, and music, and films. And let's face it, these things aren't really so very different. Our rare species is incomplete; we are tadpoles who know of the mountain. Nevermind that our objectivity is more subjective than our subjectivity, we each seek a personal understanding of existence. Existence, however, doesn't lend itself to a personal understanding, or rather, it lends itself to every personal understanding. We therefore create our lives in defense of our assumed world. My assumed world, i am quite sure, is a romantic one. If we skip over the value-judgement adjectives of imaginary, impractical, and idealized, we come to Webster's sixth definition: "Of, relating to, or constituting the part of a hero..." In my assumed world, i am a hero. But - and this is the part that no one seems to comprehend - so is everyone else. Every person has their own journey, with their own suffering, and their own victories. And i believe, given the chance and the awareness, people will act heroically. When i sit down in a movie theater, or put on my headphones, i am temporarily surrendering to someone else's journey. In a sort-of undramatic way, i am saying, "Here is my heart, where would you take it?" And in film and music, i have often been very well cared for. As for women, on the other hand... posted by Arthur @ 5/26/2002 07:32:00 AM	Sunday, May 26, 2002