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Are we all just dolls in a plastic grey world? (Courtesy: Looking Glass) The other day I went for a job interview. I didn’t get the job...
Friday, 10 August 2012
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| Are we all just dolls in a plastic grey world? (Courtesy: Looking Glass) |
Essentially my point is I’m a little bit rigid, I think, in
my inability to act like something I’m not. Weird since I have a degree in
drama, but hey, here we are. I refuse, when push comes to shove, to be moved to
prove myself, which I think is the entire purpose of changing ourselves, of
putting on airs. That is quite obviously crap. And fake. Pointless! So I
hate pretension when framed by dishonesty, and as far as I know I missed this
job (and several others) simply because I won’t lie my way through. It’s so
tragic to me that we compare ourselves to anyone else, that we give a damn at
all who anyone else is and try to become what they admire. Of course this means
I’m destined for a shitty future. Our entire society is standardised by
definition.
Maybe this works for some. Maybe they love the challenge,
the demand, or that they’re able to succeed in this so easily. Obviously some
part of this is because I find it difficult, and I’m hating on the idea more
than a little from resentment. But why not believe things, simply because you
believe them? Why does everything we think have to be so impressive to those
around us? Yes, we want to be accepted (countless research can be found on this
topic, which regardless of whether the results are valuable or not, at the very
least proves to us its merits of urgency through quantity alone).
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| Hipsters sit on the ground. Chairs are for the boring. (Courtesy: jdn) |
Hipsters have the right idea in mind, but fail completely in
practice. Sure, counter-culture is cool. Only it’s actually ‘cool’, which makes
it anything but, in my mind. So if you were to follow me behind bushes you’d
hear at least four stories a day of degrading and unbarred insults, all
flippant jabs at philosophy made poser-ish.
Don’t think I hate the idea of NOT following social mores, but
just because you don’t want to be seen a follower is ridiculous. By all means,
we should strive to understand what makes us unique, how separate we are from
each other. ‘Embrace your individuality’, as every English teacher and every
young adult novel attests adamantly (which you might find overdone or cliché,
but it’s only repeated so much because people just don’t seem to get it).
It’s all about the thought behind it. No-one really seems to
believe anything anymore – I say, as if anyone ever did. I wish everyone (or a
decent few, at least) would give a damn about this world, instead of simply
purporting to. If the thought is genuine, it will also be original. And if it’s
not the newest way of thinking that the world has ever seen, so what?
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| Go fly, young ones unique! Yep, take this image VERY seriously (Courtesy: fox_kiyo) |
Not saying that I get this right myself. I’m always falling
short of this ridiculously Olympic-like bar I’ve raised. But I think it’s
important, and I swear I’m not alone. Everyone hates a poser, right?
Cheers,
John "Blandness" Back
Saturday, 4 August 2012
In the last week, I've seen three things which I just had to share with you.
1. I tagged along to an 'In Conversation With' event being held at the State Library at the beginning of the week. Garth Nix was the special guest and the audience was some fifty to a hundred people (my estimations are about as good as my analogies, so let's just call it a small group). As always, I sat in the second last row. I suspect this is actually a response to watching the Bourne movies too many times, as I always think it gives me a certain edge over everyone else - which is not true. It usually means I see less of the on-stage action and have further to run to reach the door, but this is what I do. The point of this story wasn't my seating preferences, though, so let's keep moving.
The star was a girl two rows in front of me. She must have been about my age, and she was OBSESSED with Garth. Every single line was met with either a ridiculous laugh or a deeply, deeply understanding nod. She was bouncing (literally as well as figuratively) the whole way through, and the true highlight of the session came when Garth was looking through his piles of writerly stuff for a print of his latest book's cover, only to find a copy of the book waving furiously above her seat. "I have it! Use mine!" she screamed (or so I heard). Nice as the offer was, he carried on and found the cover print he was looking for. I'm not bitter-less enough that it didn't annoy me just a little every time she appeared to die upon his words. And there's always at least one. Sometimes there are more and it becomes a Fan War convention where each battles headlong for the friendship of the author. It frustrated me at first, because it seemed too keen. Then I realized I was wrong.
2. If I ask you out in the next few days, ignore what I'm about to say. I hate asking girls for dates. Maybe from a fairly tragic record, or maybe because my natural resistance to prove myself to people clashes with everything that is the dating system. So what then shall I do, when society begs for conforming? (NOTE: not a hipster). Some girls seem worth it and I wonder why I feel so compelled to ignore my own thoughts. Every now and then one comes along so pretty by face, so inspiring in whatever way I find them to be inspiring, that beliefs become obsolete in the enormity of what I know I must in fact do. My crushes are maybe a little different to any normal person's, which I think stems from my complete fear of the normal thing. And so here's the second story of this week.
My current crush (this term seems to mean a lot more in my lifelong narrative than I'm willing to admit) works in a library. Kind of. Anybody who lives in Brisbane, I dare you to try and find her. But don't. In an attempt to overcome some of my more crippling social problems, the next time I see her I am obligated to ask her out. Now I am petrified of libraries. I only visited one this the last month, and I was gone within five minutes. It's now been a little over four weeks since I saw this girl, but this coming Monday I will see her again, because at this point I have to. Yesterday I 'read a book' outside her library for a little over an hour before realizing that if I didn't leave soon I'd get nothing done all day.
You want to slap me across the face, don't you? Yell and spit and curse all kinds of pitiful? "This is just stupid," you say. "There's no reason to be so worked up. It's just a date." Tell me about it. What a cowering beast of a brain to have, one which follows me though I want desperately to leave it behind a thoughtless horizon. I'm not sure what exactly is stopping me. Nerves, undoubtedly, but to what end? And gee, I'd just love an answer right now.
3. The last was on the ferry home only yesterday afternoon. A girl (I always seem to notice the girls. Wonder why) walked to the till inside and asked for a ticket. That will be $2.30, thanks. No, we can't accept card as payment. She apologised and turned to jump off ship.
"Where are you going?" asked another of the ferry's crew.
"I don't have any cash. It's alright, I'll take the next ferry," she replied.
"Don't do that. I'll pay for your ticket."
The girl stepped back inside in careful deliberation. "Are you serious?"
"Yes, of course I am. Come on, go sit down. I'll take care of it for you."
So sweet. Bus drivers take note.
Cheers,
John "The Frail One" Back
P.S I hope to hell the girl from 2 doesn't read this blog. It's all... a joke?
1. I tagged along to an 'In Conversation With' event being held at the State Library at the beginning of the week. Garth Nix was the special guest and the audience was some fifty to a hundred people (my estimations are about as good as my analogies, so let's just call it a small group). As always, I sat in the second last row. I suspect this is actually a response to watching the Bourne movies too many times, as I always think it gives me a certain edge over everyone else - which is not true. It usually means I see less of the on-stage action and have further to run to reach the door, but this is what I do. The point of this story wasn't my seating preferences, though, so let's keep moving.
The star was a girl two rows in front of me. She must have been about my age, and she was OBSESSED with Garth. Every single line was met with either a ridiculous laugh or a deeply, deeply understanding nod. She was bouncing (literally as well as figuratively) the whole way through, and the true highlight of the session came when Garth was looking through his piles of writerly stuff for a print of his latest book's cover, only to find a copy of the book waving furiously above her seat. "I have it! Use mine!" she screamed (or so I heard). Nice as the offer was, he carried on and found the cover print he was looking for. I'm not bitter-less enough that it didn't annoy me just a little every time she appeared to die upon his words. And there's always at least one. Sometimes there are more and it becomes a Fan War convention where each battles headlong for the friendship of the author. It frustrated me at first, because it seemed too keen. Then I realized I was wrong.
2. If I ask you out in the next few days, ignore what I'm about to say. I hate asking girls for dates. Maybe from a fairly tragic record, or maybe because my natural resistance to prove myself to people clashes with everything that is the dating system. So what then shall I do, when society begs for conforming? (NOTE: not a hipster). Some girls seem worth it and I wonder why I feel so compelled to ignore my own thoughts. Every now and then one comes along so pretty by face, so inspiring in whatever way I find them to be inspiring, that beliefs become obsolete in the enormity of what I know I must in fact do. My crushes are maybe a little different to any normal person's, which I think stems from my complete fear of the normal thing. And so here's the second story of this week.
My current crush (this term seems to mean a lot more in my lifelong narrative than I'm willing to admit) works in a library. Kind of. Anybody who lives in Brisbane, I dare you to try and find her. But don't. In an attempt to overcome some of my more crippling social problems, the next time I see her I am obligated to ask her out. Now I am petrified of libraries. I only visited one this the last month, and I was gone within five minutes. It's now been a little over four weeks since I saw this girl, but this coming Monday I will see her again, because at this point I have to. Yesterday I 'read a book' outside her library for a little over an hour before realizing that if I didn't leave soon I'd get nothing done all day.
You want to slap me across the face, don't you? Yell and spit and curse all kinds of pitiful? "This is just stupid," you say. "There's no reason to be so worked up. It's just a date." Tell me about it. What a cowering beast of a brain to have, one which follows me though I want desperately to leave it behind a thoughtless horizon. I'm not sure what exactly is stopping me. Nerves, undoubtedly, but to what end? And gee, I'd just love an answer right now.
3. The last was on the ferry home only yesterday afternoon. A girl (I always seem to notice the girls. Wonder why) walked to the till inside and asked for a ticket. That will be $2.30, thanks. No, we can't accept card as payment. She apologised and turned to jump off ship.
"Where are you going?" asked another of the ferry's crew.
"I don't have any cash. It's alright, I'll take the next ferry," she replied.
"Don't do that. I'll pay for your ticket."
The girl stepped back inside in careful deliberation. "Are you serious?"
"Yes, of course I am. Come on, go sit down. I'll take care of it for you."
So sweet. Bus drivers take note.
Cheers,
John "The Frail One" Back
P.S I hope to hell the girl from 2 doesn't read this blog. It's all... a joke?
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Sometimes when reading a book, only one word comes to mind.
Not because the prose is lacking, or the ideas aren’t complicated enough to illicit
more than one-word responses. Simply because a sort of stuntedness wraps your
brain so that all you can do is try to keep reading behind endless circles in
your mind of ‘wow’ or ‘incredible’. This is just my lame way of saying that even
at the end of Steph Bowe’s Girl Saves Boy,
even after scouring the dictionary for anything at all, I still had only one
thought: how could anything be so sweet?
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| Don't spend the entire novel waiting for fairy lights. They will, but not how you expect. |
GSB is a love story
of two teenagers: Sacha Thomas, a terminally ill boy who collects garden gnomes
from others’ gardens, and Jewel Valentine, an emotionally distanced sketch
artist haunted by death. It begins as any happy story will, with Sacha
attempting to drown himself in a lake and Jewel coming bravely to his rescue.
This is their first meeting, and we are lucky enough to see how these two
preciously damaged souls come together with their individual pains.
And sweet is definitely the single word which retains for me
throughout the entire story. Not because it is blissfully unaware – plenty of
unhappiness ensues, from terminal illnesses to broken families and death,
unrequitedness and the impossibility of teenage normalness – but because it
breaks past all of these with a sense that none are alone and the world isn’t
worth giving up on just because your life is looking bleak.
I’d like for people to get this idea from my own writing.
Honestly, if ever there is a Best of John Back collection where every single thing
was fundamentally flawed in a perfectly appreciated, all-the-better-for-it kind
of way, I’d well and truly die from pride. This is, I think, my most simple and
most important conception of life so far: enduring optimism.
I’m not sure if the author intended this to be quite so
prevalent as I have taken it to be. Some readers will find heartbreak and
intense, lonely pain and they won’t see any of what I’m talking about. But I
think this is because we are conditioned to want pain, to search for it
unrelentingly to remind us that feelings are human, that we’re allowed to be
downtrodden even if we need a sad story and broken characters to get us there.
I’m not saying to fall apart immediately and irreparably if something goes
wrong, I just wish we could celebrate sadness like we do happiness. Anyway!
Regardless of whether Bowe wished for this or not, for me I
found the most joy in the fact that something prevailingly uplifting was
published in a (let’s face it) fairly passively-aggressive pessimist’s
playground. It gives me hope that there is a market for that which is not
degrading, depressing or intrinsically critical of everything human. Maybe this
is simply because the author was a mere 15 years old at the time of writing
(which I still don’t fully believe) and had not been made brazenly agitated by
humanity yet. And something I honestly believe is that the major strength of
this GSB lies in the age of its
author: that excluding the characters who are rife with multi-tragic pasts and
the plot which moves in terrific speed, this novel is wonderfully simple. Not in
a negative sense. Not from being under-thought or hinderingly naive. Its
simplicity stems from a childlike state, from an honest, non-embittered view of
the world which most authors would (wrongly in my opinion) consider ‘unworthy’
of literary value.
I applaud Steph Bowe for this, though she may find it embarrassing
now, being older and having seen more of the dark world. I wonder if sweetness
is attainable once you reach a certain age, or is it something which will
forever be stuck in the ‘wonder years’? Can we ever allow ourselves as thinking
adults to stay simple, to accept anything for what it honestly could be? Or are
we all too far gone for that? I’ll certainly be doing everything I can for it.
I hope GSB’s author will be doing the
same.
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