2/17/2023

Recently the New Yorker Radio Hour interviewed Salman Rushdie. Unlike most of their podcast episodes, this one spanned a whole hour. David Remnick, the interviewer, stated it was whittled down from a three-hour conversation between him and Rushdie. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a way to listen to the unexpurgated, three-hour interview.
Often the New Yorker just covers SJW issues, pereptuating the culture war as a distraction from real issues like economic inequality. I reckon that is not purposeful but a consequence of Hanlon's Razor, e.g. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Yet my mind wanders there in light of the derailed, burning toxic train near East Palestine, Ohio being buried by headlines concerning Chinese spy balloons.
What struck me about the Salman Rushdie interview was his intelligence and how interesting it was to listen to him talk about writing. I know of Salman Rushdie, I've never read his work, but apparently he's a writer with a capital W and it really came across in the interview.

Thursday afternoon while I was running out the clock at work, I was listening to Sci-Fi Old Time Radio and this internet station played an adaptation of a story called The Most Beautiful Woman In Town. I was half listening to it at the start until heard "Henry Chinaski". Henry Chinaski is Charles Bukowski's self-insert in his fiction portraying "lowlife culture" in novels like Barfly and Factotum. At first I thought this was a pastiche or some other better term, but at the end the narrator revealed it was a story written by Bukowski. Knowing he was a graphomaniac I shouldn't be surprised, but I didn't think he wandered into the territory of weird, horror, and similarly-veined genres. I thought it was quite good.

From there I began thinking about my favorite authors. Bukowski spending about a decade in an alcoholic stupor, still writing though, before deciding to spend his time writing rather than drinking away his life. Rather alcohol became a secondary vice to his voluminous oeuvre.
H.P. Lovecraft established the genre of weird fiction, but he's really better known for his enormous collection of correspondence through the course of his life. Lovecraft lived in poverty, though he still travelled widely despite never crossing the Mississppi but ate horribly out of early 20th century cans which possibly contributed to Bright's disease (nephritis) and the intestinal cancer claiming his life.
While I don't necessarily enjoy reading Philip K. Dick, anytime I read his work I'm overcome with sadness, he tackled strange topics like precognition, time travel, moving between parallel Earths, and I feel some sympathy for him. PKD lived in poverty for most of his life, only finding success later on, but he died early with his amphetamine abuse being a major contributor.
Knowing of these self-destructive men, I began to think of Harry DuBois who is the protagonist in the video game Disco Elysium. I love the character and project a lot of myself on him. For example how Harry can't, or won't, recover from his divorce from his wife Doris, his substance abuse, the many voices in his head coupled with depression and madness.

I got to wondering if readers like the 'pornography' of reading about self-destructive characters, understanding where the characters are coming from, appreciating why they are considering their commitment to dire acts, but cheering for them when characters choose not to embrace oblivion.

From there I contemplated how it feels like I only really write to people, like the letter I wrote to Leah on Valentine's Day, my Telegram conversations with Wednesday, or when I'd go on a tear with social media by shitposting.
I wondered if when authors have a dedication to someone, if that dedication is aimed at who the person really is or who the person is to the author or who that author believes the person to be in their mind's eye. After all nobody is ever the way one imagines them. Like if I dedicated a short story to Wednesday, just for example, is it because I had Wednesday in mind while writing the tale? Like, "Here's me and I'm giving a piece of me to you"?

In other news I found a male therapist who will see me in person. My first appointment is on Tuesday night at 7 p.m.

Work is work.

Sometime next week Bloomfield is going to be meeting up with my dealer in Livingston to talk etsy and help get my dealer moving forward with crafting and business, inshallah. Glad that I helped get them together and I hope it bears fruit. Sometime in May I'm going to take a day off to help my dealer get a copy of their birth certificate then schedule an appointment at Social Security so they can finally have a copy of their social security card on-hand in order to do business and finally get their driver's license.

Knowing I found a male therapist has boosted my spirits and given me some hope.