Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“We belong to the West. The more we find in the East or anywhere else the more it makes us inwardly divided, homeless in our own land. We become cultural tramps and vagabonds. The solutions we find are never fundamental answers. They only create more problems.

—Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Being gay is harder than being black….I didn’t have to come out black. I didn’t have to sit my parents down and tell them about my blackness.”

—Wanda Sykes, I’ma Be Me



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful...and decide what you want and need and must do. It’s a tough, unimaginably lonely, and complicated way to be in the world. But that’s the deal: you have to live; you can’t live by slogans, dead ideas, clichés, or national flags. Finding an identity is easy. It’s the easy way out.

—Zadie Smith, On Beauty



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Quote of the day:

"To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread."

—Robertson Davies


I'm not sure I would agree with that, any more than I would agree with the cliché that you have to suffer to produce great art. Certainly autobiography, neuroses, and difficult lives have been components of the artistic experience, but I don't think they're necessarily the only things that produce good art. I think the need to produce art comes from a vacuum somewhere, though. Whether it's a painful past; a dissatisfaction with the way the world is and wanting to make it better; a feeling of being lost in a crowd and wanting something that is uniquely yours—there are many entrances into that Void Which Needs to be Filled.


Writing talk of the day:

I've just realized the old novel I recently took a look at, Brother Wolf, is basically the plot of the documentary film, Unknown White Male, but with SF and thriller elements thrown in.

My novel was inspired by an interview with a woman who was in a terrible accident and lost her entire memory. Fascinated, I started researching memory and amnesia.

Complete and permanent amnesia is very rare—most get partial amnesia and gradually recover their memories, or most of their memories. It's not at all like it's usually portrayed in fictional movies. But what happened to this woman, and apparently what happened to the true life man portrayed in Unknown White Male, is that once the memories are completely gone, a whole new personality emerges, as if what makes us distinctly who we are is the thirty percent or so of our personality matrix that is due to experience (i.e., that isn't genetics and/or "womb experience").

One striking incident, a great telling detail, I remember about the woman I saw interviewed, was when she related how odd everything in her home seemed to her when she finally returned to it. She looked in her closet and thought, "God, what awful clothes. They're hideous." She got rid of everything and started building a new wardrobe to go with her emerging new taste. She worked outward from there, changing everything in her house, and everything in her life. Some of the relationships she'd had before the accident survived this process, some did not. But she said she couldn't help that. She couldn't be the person she used to be anymore because that person and her tastes and attitudes were a complete stranger to her.

People who have seen Unknown White Male report a similar arc for the man portrayed in the film. One critic said the new Doug seems happier and more comfortable in his skin than the old Doug. He's starting fresh and he has a chance to build a life all over from scratch.

The other way to look at that, I suppose, is that he lost himself and may never get that self back.

I'd be hard-pressed to say what is better and what is worse.