“Meaning—what I say”

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(Steve Roggenbuck is a well-known, I guess you’d say, flarf poet.) I’ve had that tweet  saved for over a month now. I meant to use it in a previous post that I never ended up writing (I wrote something else instead.) It’s so exciting to me that something can seem so interesting in a moment and then so dull just a little bit later. The interval between these blogs is about two weeks: I can write anything that I want to here, but just one thing, every two weeks. It’s exciting that, in two weeks, the one thing I most want to write about can change so severely. I drafted this post immediately after I posted “Meaning—what we say” last week; there were some brief points in the body section, and I wrote the title, “Meaning—what I say.” I’ve preserved that title in quotes. What I’m writing here now isn’t at all what I’d planned to write two weeks ago, “but it might have been.” No, not even that is really true, except in the sense that anything might have been.

Two other examples from my daily lief come immediately to mind. The first is finding books. I have 114 books “saved for later” in my Amazon cart; I add books faster than I could ever read them. Generally, books sit there and wait for awhile before I buy them, because, as my time is limited, I have to be sure that I really want to read them–that they’re worth the time. Or would I rather just read their description a few more times and then remove them?

The second is signing up for classes. No time to explain that any more now. I’m writing into the moment, and I’ve already thought of other things I’d like to say instead.

How did I find the tweet I quoted above? I was supposed to be reading something else, but I had gotten sick enough of it that I decided to open twitter. I follow enough people on twitter that I see completely separate versions of my timeline if I open it one minute earlier or later, so I could just as easily not have seen it.

When I misspelled “live” as “leif” above, I remembered that Steve Roggenbuck spells it “lief.” PERFECT. And when I went searching for a specific article about him from the New York Times—and I couldn’t find it—I ran into one from the New Yorker (linked above) that reminded me of something else I might like to use for Literacy Remixed. When I landed on Steve’s website to copy the address for a hyperlink I saw the name of his new podcast: “read poetry & eventually die.” Perfect.

How is this post different from meta ann doak?

Back to the tweet. Here are some of the responses that people gave. They range over so much more “terrain” than I could “cover.” I invite you to give your own in the comments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 thoughts on ““Meaning—what I say””

  1. This and the Meta Ann Doak post overwhelm me. It’s not merely the length, but the familiarity of the idea of there always being so much and always so much more.

    Last night I was in the music building library. I wanted to pick up a book about the scores of Alfred Hitchcock’s films for a paper. Next to the film music section beckons the musicals section. Mostly it’s full of scores from famous shows, but there’s also a large collection of collections of musicals–100 Greatest American Musicals, Musicals of the 20th Century, Broadway: The American Musical, and on and on. There are two dozen collections of musicals, with at least 300 different shows mentioned.

    As much as I want, I will never see even close to half of these shows–not many of them will be performed again, and even so, Pittsburgh only showcases a score of musicals each year across it’s theatres (and high schools). I thought it best to leave the musical section, as this thought made me depressed.

    There are shelves upon shelves of musical biographies, in many cases, multiple books have been written on the same person or group (The Beatles alone have books about them numbering in the hundreds, with handfuls of new publications each year). Even if I never slept, I’ll never read it all.

    It might be exciting to think about all the amazing content that exists and continues to be created, but comparing what I have encountered and what I haven’t, there are far more missed opportunities than there have been or will be productive experiences.

    Ten years ago, The Illustrated Book of Myths and Legends was my favorite book. Five Years ago The Great Gatsby had this honor. Three years ago The Perks of Being A Wallflower took the title. Now The Bell Jar. Although I am currently rereading Up the Down Staircase, which might knock Plath out of the top slot.

    There was a point at which I had not read The Great Gatsby or The Bell Jar or Up the Down Staircase, a time when my mind was different and things felt alright, but then I encountered something wonderful.

    How many wonderful encounters am I not having?

    Reply

    1. There’s so much here. (If I didn’t know before how people feel reading something like “Meaning—what I say” or meta ann doak, I am starting to.) Just one thing:

      You sound so crestfallen; the theme of this post (to the extent that there “is” a theme) is that all that matters now is now. I would refer you to W. C. Williams but, instead, speaking of musicals…Stephen Sondheim put it jauntily: “Things look swell; things look great; I’m gonna have the whole world on a plate—starting here, starting now…everything’s coming up roses…!”

      Reply

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