Author: virtualshane

4. White Chalk

Published on by virtualshane

Revelation from all his trying was what White expected. After trying so much and for so long revelation came to White finally and he laughed and cried and cursed at the revelation he did not want. 

Why would anyone want inescapable contradiction, paradox and reflexivity? 

If revelation is always revealing, there is no revelation at all, or at least no final revelation, unless final revelation is right around the bend… He ought wait for God or Godot or the good “Oh!” like a second coming. 

The pre-moderns may have been as screwed up as White, but at least those dummies believed in an apprehensible Truth. How nice to believe there exists a firm ground to stand upon. How nice to believe you have two feet!

3. White Chalk

Published on by virtualshane

The ol’ adage: There is no try, only “do”. 

That is, don’t be uncertain. Be assured and focus on accomplishment. 

The adage appeals to some, but for White there is only try try try try… interspersed with “done” and resumed with try try try try… 

Try is smarter than do, because what is done is either flawed and incomplete, or part of a larger project in process. And White’s ideals never let up, so “do” and “done” are like distant mountains. “Do” is mountain peak only. “Try” is trail and trees, pretty birds and singing rivers.

2. White Chalk

Published on by virtualshane

White is grateful for his depression in its degree and frequency. It reminds him how closely happiness gets entangled with culture and community, personal meaning and purpose. Depression severs those tangled connections.

Without connection he feels the lonely ache, until he sits or walks or swims and is suddenly reminded there is a unique pleasure when loosened from the social and the self, when cut from their preconditions. The pleasure feels more pure and more free. White is grateful for depression to remind him of this pleasure as pleasure in itself. He is reminded until he forgets again and grasps outward again until depression again returns like a cutting wind.

He likes the winds that cut, and yet he must admit he’s never had the tempestuous depression that cuts one from the feeling of Life, not connection with culture or community, but the big strong feeling that there is a thing called Life and he is Life as much as anything is. He’s never been so cut off, hopes never to. His heart for those who have and are.

2. Charcoal

Published on by virtualshane

Simile and metaphor layer on comment and reveal point of view, like jokes made half seriously.

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in
Another moon. But oh, methinks how slow
This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,
Like to a stepdame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man’s revenue.
– Theseus, Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1:1:1-6

[Now, beautiful Hippolyta, the hour of our wedding is speeding closer. In four joyful days there will be a new crescent moon, and we will marry. But oh! The old moon seems to me to shrink away so slowly! It delays me from getting what I desire, just like an old rich widow will force her stepson to wait forever to receive his inheritance. (litcharts.com)]

Theseus is marrying Hippolyta for her land and riches. He is the “stepson” waiting for his “inheritance”.

And more, statements early in a work raise expectations for statements later, such as what will be stated about patriarchy in MND. And as such, what simile, metaphor and jokes shall follow this?

1 Charcoal

Published on by virtualshane

intransitive performance. noun

A performance that stays within the individual to explore and expand the faculties of mind, heart and spirit, e.g. White Chalk, Blue Smoke, Orange Hair, Redwood Curtains, Charcoal, and Purple Mission Figs.