Scribbling about God

I’ve been thinking that once you decide you believe in reality, really any reality, it’s not such a huge jump to decide to believe in God. If you believe in existence, it doesn’t seem so hard to believe that something caused it. I know that it doesn’t have to be God that caused it, but it ends up being something mysterious we can’t really account for in any case. Chicken, egg, ad infinitum. So it’s either God or not God, but the idea that it’s God doesn’t seem more outlandish to me than the other options, once I’ve decided to believe that I am, in fact, here, that the physical word exists and et cetera.

So if I believe in God, I can probably also believe that I might see my dead loved ones again. I might not, but it doesn’t really seem too outlandish to hope that I might or to even believe that it’s possible, so long as I’m already believing that I exist and the universe with me.

Oh, how far from certainty. How utterly, blessedly, beautifully far.

“But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be
In the arms of all I’m keeping here with me.”

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

is, of course, a great song by The Smiths. It’s also a great cover by Noel Gallagher. There’s a pretty great clip on YouTube of NG talking about Morrissey and Johnny Marr (he loves them) capturing the quintessence of pop stardom (which is looking absolutely ridiculous and absolutely, effortlessly cool at the same time).

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out is also the name of short story I’m currently writing. My prose lit seminar has really helped me see material in places I’ve been ignoring and is helping me think in better dramatic fashion. That’s not to say, by the way, that my Light That Never Goes Out story is about the song. The song (really just the title) is a jumping-off point, and what I’m learning from close readings of Cheever, Munro, O’Connor, Bellow, etc in the context of the seminar is helping me think about story in general and about specific stories.

Bands Like These

For the past two or three years, I’ve been thinking how super-clever I am for comparing Foo Fighters (I like them) to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (I love them). Now that Foo Fighters greatest hits is out, everyone is making that comparison. I’ve read at least three reviews with this basic conceit in the last few days. I’m not saying I thought of it first (my friend Darren Croucher did) but it’s become obligatory. The new Petty live anthology looks awesome, by the way. That’s a band and a half.

Old Pieties

I definitely feel like “What is the point? What’s the point of making music anymore?” I feel that the album no longer has a stronghold or has any real bearing anymore. The physical format itself is obsolete; the CD is obsolete and the LP is kinda nostalgic. So, I think the album is suffering and that’s how I’ve always created — I work with these conceptual albums in the long-form. And I’m wondering, what’s the value of my work once these forms are obsolete and everyone’s just downloading music? And I’m starting to get sick of my conceptual ideas. I’m tired of these grand, epic endeavours and wanting to just make music for the joy of making music and having it be immediate and nothing to do with the industry itself, which, y’know is suffering right now of course.

And I think it has to do with a creative crisis too. I’m wondering what am I doing? What is a song even? I’m questioning, what’s the point of a song? Is a song antiquated? Does it have any power any more? The format itself — a narrative song with accompaniment — is really beyond me now. Like, I feel that The BQE is not really a song, it’s not really a movie, it’s not really just a soundtrack. It’s so ambiguous and diversified, it seems to lack shape. And the expressway itself lacks shape, so I feel like it’s all related to this existential crisis: Me versus the BQE, or me versus my work, y’know? And I don’t think I can win; I feel like it’s a losing battle…

-Sufjan Stevens.

Some people will think this sounds self-important or whatever. I suppose if you’ve never had a crisis of faith about anything, you might think that. More here.

The Priest and The Peacock

This is from “The Displaced Person” by Flannery O’Connor:

I don’t presume to know if it will do the same for you, but it made me feel the way maybe church is supposed to. When I get to the last few lines I want to start singing the refrain from “Chicago” by Sufjan Stevens in a kind of kairotic response.

The More Things Change

When I was 17, I wanted to be two things.  Joseph Conrad and this:

Not much has changed.

Moravians

Bach Choir

Bach Choir

Google Alerts Goodie Bag: Victor LaValle, Blake Bailey, and Donald Barthleme

I set up Google Alerts for my current reads and favorite authors. You should, too. Two things I wanted to share from today. Consider these as literary trick-or-treat treats from me to your virtual goodie bag.

Victor LaValle’s The Big Machine is a Top Ten Book of 2009 at Publishers Weekly (links to Nigel Beal’s blog). Victor LaValle read from The Big Machine at The New School a few weeks ago and was awesome, like I said. My copy of The Big Machine just came in the mail. The new Cheever biography by Blake Bailey is also on this list.

I’m reading Donald Barthleme’s Sixty Stories between Flannery O’Connor for my prose lit seminar and short story writing and novel revisions. I came across Barthleme’s syllabus at The Believer. His 81 required texts for writers.