I have been listening to an audiobook by Steven Pressfield called The War of Art -- obviously a play on the title of the Sun Tzu book The Art of War which I deeply appreciate because wordplay is one of those things which makes heavy and otherwise fusty erudite works somewhat accessible. The book talks about “resistance” as an evil demon -- monomaniacally set on sabotaging all that we hope to achieve. The artistic achievements we wish to make, Pressfield says, are those things we abjectly fear to do; those things are the tasks we are impelled to complete despite our resistance because they are likely the very lifeblood that gives us back our sense of living. The author is sort of abrasive; I imagine him as the kind of person who I enjoy but would probably find me odious. This is not to say I think this person is a better person than I am or anything. I think I tend to enjoy people who, even if erroneous, stick to some core principles instead of being, I guess, more zen and going-with-the-flow type people. I like stories of turn-of-the-century tycoons and robber barons for this reason. Willy Meizners appeal to me as much as Willy Lohmans. There is something in that tenacity in the face of impending failure which makes the narrative memorable. Whether it’s Don Quixote or Don Juan, both are fantastical forces headed toward a kind of ruin. Pressfield’s book (I have only started listening to it today) probably doesn’t touch on this much, but I mention it because it began the idea cloud or web in my mind today. I also mention this because there is a large bibliography of books I have read or listened to that touch on this resistance to creation, so that has kind of spurred me on to share something which has been kind of nebulous in my head. I say mind cloud because often times things stay there before being fleshed out
By things I mean images. Images of things I’ve seen, I’ve imagined, or I can’t place as either. They stay with me because they are more like memories or dreams.
I have this one image (maybe something at the end of a bitter tragedy) which I can’t exactly place, but I think it came from my brain.
It’s a balding man in underpants, a bathrobe (plaid flannel, actually, so maybe that’s a dressing gown or something), and slippers standing in his yard in maybe four inches of snow. He has either a letter in his hand or a newspaper. The dark red felt of his slippers is soggy and seeping wet and the white pale legs show varicose veins. His yard is situated in a city neighborhood but one more suburban. It is probably in Peoria, Illinois, but it could be anywhere. The houses are all one story ranch styles except maybe one or two two-story houses-- small, midcentury designs (as to that, I am unsure what the time period of this moment is). The neighborhood is kind of obscured, and it’s snowing outside. I was poring over my Chris Ware books because this feels like one of his. There is an intersection with these houses in view. The robed man’s house is not in view. In the intersection, his yard would be quadrant III if this was a plane formed by an x and y axis. At least I think it is quadrant III -- I just realized I haven’t been in a math class for maybe 10 years. It’s the lower left hand quadrant. That would have saved us some time. The yard goes out to the side walk. It’s an open yard. If you had a dog, the yard is far enough reaching out from the house that you probably could let your dog defecate near the side walk without much notice of anybody in that house. But that isn’t visible. What is visible is the streets 3 inches deep in snow and the yard all blanketed. The snow is continuing to fall. Back to the man. He is outside in the snow. His wake is more of a trudge pushing against the snow as opposed to neat little foot prints. His burning feet are exposed to the snow (slippers soaked as mentioned.) He has some glasses -- the aviator looking kind that are large enough to take up most of the face. The paper in his hand is being clutched by him in both hands now. He looks out into the wintery neighborhood scene. He’s the only one about. There is a light from a single street lamp on the corner, not metal but the wooden kind with the metal bit on top. The black telephone or cable wires cause shadows of line -- otherwise the snow is undisturbed. It isn’t pitch black outside which means it must be morning. But not so late in the morning that the light is shut off on the lamppost. It seems clear that the paper isn’t today’s newspaper now as it would be something he had in the house with him when he walked out. So I suppose it is notes or a letter. I’m unsure. But he is shivering in the cold but also convulsing. He is laughing. At first it aspirates as heavy breaths. Ah. Ah. AhhhhHa. But the laughter becomes more animated as he throws his hands in the air. This reveals the bland, sad briefs he is wearing -- more taupe in the light than white. Because of the snow around his feet the flaying of his hands is contorted by the stationary placement of his feet -- as if they were stuck in cement. The laughter would be described as not malicious exactly but certainly not mirthful. He is laughing but gasping like crying and almost screaming. I say almost screaming because he is projecting his voice but isn’t specifically trying to rouse people out of their homes. This laugh has been going staccato up to this point. He is throwing the laughs into the air seemingly to hit something or someone watching down. But after this, he sucks his teeth, grasps, his head, and makes his body smaller. I should say, he must be of an average build because he is rolling in the torso but not to a great degree. I think it looks more like a plastic bag of rice than a sack of potatoes. He kneels down, then places his hip and ass down in the snow, one leg underneath his body the other extended. The extended leg has surrendered up the slipper. He sobs. His hands grasp the grass underneath snow. He pinches is as if trying to hurt a dog or cat but digging in deep with his nails. dirt on hands, he pushes himself back on his feet -- or attempts to but trips over a loose slipper and goes down, knees first, into the snow face first, his glasses on the snow’s surface above his head now masked in snow. He lifts his face up, burning tears on face, head looking left as if sleeping on a large quilt. The soaked flannel is draped over him but his briefs are visible. Barefoot are close together as the legs are buried in snow but close enough together that the feet are touching. The hands are open-palmed with redness and mud. The snow is falling still. The scene ends with him trembling and aspirating a long “ahhh”.
This is a mental image which I could, if it is actually mine, work a story around. Sometimes I feel like saying something like that is akin to designing a house around a doorknob, but that probably is how writers go about it. I mean, this image or scene is something which feels like a dream I had or like something I read or something I based off of a movie or tv show or whatever, but now it exists as this thing in my mind.
When I work on comics or drawings, I don’t really think about the thing before it exists on paper. Most of my work is incidental or created through thinking I do with my fingers. But I think this has probably been my impediment when it comes to working on longer works. I don’t really take the time to reify something by putting it into words or thumbnails that I can then edit. I dunno. Sort of a rambling realization, this, and probably obvious to a lot of folk, but I thought it was worth noting for myself. I may take more time to actually write or type things out in general.
And I may return to journaling. I just don’t think it’s illuminating anything, so I am holding off for now.
