Thoughts on a Review
"[Ms. Sundae has]an almost 17th century sensibility combined with a warmth and immediacy that's hard to find"
Beg your pardon?
I mean, I'm incredibly flattered and whatnot but "huh"? Unless by "17th century sensibility" the all-too-kind critic meant unwashed, illiterate and prone to outbreaks of dyssentary, I don't get it. The 17th century had some pretty heavy literary hitters. John Donne, William Shakespeare and a whole mess of other syphilitic geniuses who could turn a phrase out on its ear and have it come back for more.
Not me. I don't have the cunning to be strange.
It's not that I haven't given it the old college try. I have nearly hairlipped Hell trying to be deep and ponderous. It's in me too, it just won't come out. Kierkegaard has made me cry on more than one occasion and I could probably outline the difference between Anixmandes and Anaximander if sufficiently provoked. I just can't write about it without sounding like a self-involved jackass.
Now I don't actually have a problem sounding like a self-involved jackass. That's actually a bit of a forté in the Day Job, but I only talk about shallow, self-involved things during the Day Job. I don’t mind having outlandish and unfair opinions on hair products, Norwegian death metal bands, and other people's outfits (seriously, what IS the thought process behind a purple and aqua argyle button-down on a grown man?) but when it comes to the real stuff -the broken hand, the bloody heart- I can't do it. My fingertips hurt and I just can't get the words to come out fine enough for so subtle a subject.
Better not say anything at all, then.
Let's talk about my hair.
Beg your pardon?
I mean, I'm incredibly flattered and whatnot but "huh"? Unless by "17th century sensibility" the all-too-kind critic meant unwashed, illiterate and prone to outbreaks of dyssentary, I don't get it. The 17th century had some pretty heavy literary hitters. John Donne, William Shakespeare and a whole mess of other syphilitic geniuses who could turn a phrase out on its ear and have it come back for more.
Not me. I don't have the cunning to be strange.
It's not that I haven't given it the old college try. I have nearly hairlipped Hell trying to be deep and ponderous. It's in me too, it just won't come out. Kierkegaard has made me cry on more than one occasion and I could probably outline the difference between Anixmandes and Anaximander if sufficiently provoked. I just can't write about it without sounding like a self-involved jackass.
Now I don't actually have a problem sounding like a self-involved jackass. That's actually a bit of a forté in the Day Job, but I only talk about shallow, self-involved things during the Day Job. I don’t mind having outlandish and unfair opinions on hair products, Norwegian death metal bands, and other people's outfits (seriously, what IS the thought process behind a purple and aqua argyle button-down on a grown man?) but when it comes to the real stuff -the broken hand, the bloody heart- I can't do it. My fingertips hurt and I just can't get the words to come out fine enough for so subtle a subject.
Better not say anything at all, then.
Let's talk about my hair.
posted by Rhiannon at 2:02 PM
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