When I think of ideas, I write them in a list of the little book I carry with me everywhere. When I sit down to write and nothing comes to mind, I scan the list and find a topic to write about. Sometimes I'll write at an idea for a little while, but so little comes of it that it's insufficient even for one of these typically short rants. Other times, I can tell that the results would be slight even without writing. But there has to be some use for these small thoughts. Thus, this collection of leftovers, some random thoughts, candle-ends.
"Paradigms for achieving happiness": I don't remember exactly what idea this phrase was supposed to encapsulate. I imagine that it may have something to do with my maxim, "The meaning of life is the creation of art." By which I mean that all the day-jobs in the world amount to nothing - that although Charles Ives may have been a great insurance salesman, all that is now remembered is his music. Although it is not a guarantee that self-expression will result in happiness. So maybe I meant something else.
"Crossing legs at the knee": This gesture is supposed to be effeminate in males. Remember those diagrams for women of how to sit like the letter "S"? I cross my legs at the knee, not ankle-on-knee like my father. I think I started doing it on purpose. Maybe a lot of gay guys adopt effeminate habits as a societal fuck-you. Maybe it's bad for the back, twisting the body.
"Cultural make-overs": You're still wearing a goatee, the poodle hair of the 90s (all the hair metal bands buzzed their hair and went ska after Nirvana.) But besides your retro head, exterior, there's retro inside your head, unhip retro major labels clothes records must go - dump in dumpster. Get political -- read -- newspaper or subscribe to action alert email learn guerilla art history -- who are the lost artists?
"Robotic versions of imaginary friends": Imagine a future in which the giant purple beast that was your childhood friend could be made incarnate. Maybe that's enough for a movie pitch, or I could write a short story with it, but it seems so retro Ray Bradbury. In fact, didn't he write something like that? No guarantee of originality here.
"No opiate heroin - all the taste of smack without that strung out feeling": Advertising concept - a junkie in a darkened room rolls up his sleeve, ties off, and injects a jaundiced liquid sucked in from a spoon. Then the lights come up, and instead of nodding off, he does a tap-dance routine. Heroin Lite!
"Are puppets queer": Sure, there's Forman Brown and his friends (see the documentary about the Turnabout Theater) .) Not to mention Wayland Flowers and Madame. And that literary fellow Pinocchio, much admired by that old man Gepetto. I could speculate about sticking hands up backsides, ventriliquising, cross-dressing by proxy, the symbolism of the marionette's cross. But I guess maybe this idea is too hard to analyze - I should leave it to some academic.
Larry-bob
larrybob@gmail.com
10/25/99