I got up this morning and I read this again. It’s very good. One of the best things you’ve done so far, if not the best. It’s strikes home with me because I am working on a substantial writing project, and this poem helps clarify my sense of obligation to finish it. The ancients believed that the Muse sang, and the poets transcribed things they heard from another realm. It feels this way sometimes, at least at it’s best, it does. But the Muse is a goddess. Obeying her commands is not optional. And obedience is not always sweet. She possesses legitimate authority to command us, even to order us to climb into our barely operational surplus trainer aircraft laden with explosives and fly one last kamikaze mission, as you helpfully note. So far she has been kinder than that. But once she notices you and makes you her own you really do have to do what she says. I’m glad she has called you to poetry, and that you are sharing what you can snatch of her song with all of us. In case you need any affirmation, I can truthfully say that you are improving, you are getting better at it with persistent work. I’m sure many join me in looking forward to each new poem.
I consider it simultaneously both something of a "duty" and a pleasure to read Gray Mirror. Not only for the original content, of which this is an prime example, but the sheer glut of thinkers of all flavors & their ideas that this site alone has exposed me to has enriched my life in ways that I cannot even begin to appreciate the value of, nor adequately thank the author(s) for. If the unexamined life truly is not worth living, then I feel it is a duty to myself to keep challenging & reassessing my own views, and have found that this process of self-enrichment becomes enjoyable and truly nourishing & satisfying in its own right (which, hopefully, enriches others in your life by proxy). While the challenge of digesting this stuff can be considerable, and I certainly don't connect all the ideas right away (and sometimes even not at all (although there is something great about the "slow background connection" where you read something, and then two months later have that "oh shit!" moment in the shower or something (there is a great Nicholson Baker essay on this called "Changes of Mind"))), like anyone else, all I can do is keep trying.
I keep coming back to this. I think I just might make a large print of this and frame it, and hang it by my bed - it would be good to wake up to in the morning, remind me of what I'm here for. Get my head in the right place.
Curtis, your substack readers are probably your strongest fans, we are paying to read your stuff. If we are not all paying, turn off the freebie readers, make it mandatory for payment. You will still have as many paying readers, maybe knock away some free hecklers. I also pay to read the substack of Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club author), and Glenn Greenwood (exposes news that the fake legacy news censors).
As for me, I don't expect perfection from substack writers, I may even disagree at times, but substack writers often come up with some clever ideas that force me to think about why I agree or disagree, hadn't thought of that angle before, good mental exercise.
Solid. True. Good. Thank you.
I got up this morning and I read this again. It’s very good. One of the best things you’ve done so far, if not the best. It’s strikes home with me because I am working on a substantial writing project, and this poem helps clarify my sense of obligation to finish it. The ancients believed that the Muse sang, and the poets transcribed things they heard from another realm. It feels this way sometimes, at least at it’s best, it does. But the Muse is a goddess. Obeying her commands is not optional. And obedience is not always sweet. She possesses legitimate authority to command us, even to order us to climb into our barely operational surplus trainer aircraft laden with explosives and fly one last kamikaze mission, as you helpfully note. So far she has been kinder than that. But once she notices you and makes you her own you really do have to do what she says. I’m glad she has called you to poetry, and that you are sharing what you can snatch of her song with all of us. In case you need any affirmation, I can truthfully say that you are improving, you are getting better at it with persistent work. I’m sure many join me in looking forward to each new poem.
What drudgery to
Comment encouragingly
Get back to work, dude
I consider it simultaneously both something of a "duty" and a pleasure to read Gray Mirror. Not only for the original content, of which this is an prime example, but the sheer glut of thinkers of all flavors & their ideas that this site alone has exposed me to has enriched my life in ways that I cannot even begin to appreciate the value of, nor adequately thank the author(s) for. If the unexamined life truly is not worth living, then I feel it is a duty to myself to keep challenging & reassessing my own views, and have found that this process of self-enrichment becomes enjoyable and truly nourishing & satisfying in its own right (which, hopefully, enriches others in your life by proxy). While the challenge of digesting this stuff can be considerable, and I certainly don't connect all the ideas right away (and sometimes even not at all (although there is something great about the "slow background connection" where you read something, and then two months later have that "oh shit!" moment in the shower or something (there is a great Nicholson Baker essay on this called "Changes of Mind"))), like anyone else, all I can do is keep trying.
I really liked this one. Probably because I'm some kind of midwit.
Remember when we paid this guy to write about politics and ultimately deliver a signed physical volume? Good times
You sure whine a lot. You sure you're a prince?
He is overdoing it a bit, but I think it will actually make the end product better.
If you don't understand what patronage really is, there is nothing this man can write that you could make use of.
don't use "we"
The pivot from kinda sociopathic military strategy to poetry and self-help dating/MOAR poetry is so REAL though! #middleaginggenxrepresent
priciest book ever. there are no victims, only volunteers
stop paying
Hey man, life’s about the journey, not the destination. Even for $10 a month.
shit that hit hard
Morituri te salutant.
The language of primordial code
and the cognitive redundancies to maintain their form,
cause even the monks and their mantras to wince;
wince more still,
at the low stationed warden who emerged
to govern this bureaucracy.
Now that the red guard has come;
stomping on the warden as an invisible ant hill,
it finds among its papers an endowment.
The curse imbued in its acolytes
bearing the mark of nonegoic repetition,
offer their new master an entropic advantage,
in its harvest.
Acolytes inscribing,
in their grey mirror'd holodecks
feebly representing nature,
the invisible mark of the *variable*,
and its unholy reliability.
As the red surveys its new surfs,
it finds rather easy contracts,
that it believes can sneak beneath
the hand of consent.
Their reliable self reverberations,
make available truths to its interrogations
normally guarded by dignity's compassion,
in its final throes of confusion;
primordial goo at the bottom of the lake
reflecting the true form of its violations,
now sprinkled with variable mirrors of its vanity.
Ever urged forward.
But in offering its master its spoils;
The whip in the background,
The line of uncanny dolls,
The EULAs imbued with hidden fears;
do not impress the master's crows squawking at the corpses he presents;
let alone the master.
Desperate to recover the humiliations from its corpses that do not bleed authorship.
I love this piece.
I keep coming back to this. I think I just might make a large print of this and frame it, and hang it by my bed - it would be good to wake up to in the morning, remind me of what I'm here for. Get my head in the right place.
When are you coming to LA again?
“If I don’t work I’ll starve. If I don’t write I’ll die.”- Jim Goad.
love this
I enjoy your poetry so much more now than I did back at UR
Curtis, your substack readers are probably your strongest fans, we are paying to read your stuff. If we are not all paying, turn off the freebie readers, make it mandatory for payment. You will still have as many paying readers, maybe knock away some free hecklers. I also pay to read the substack of Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club author), and Glenn Greenwood (exposes news that the fake legacy news censors).
As for me, I don't expect perfection from substack writers, I may even disagree at times, but substack writers often come up with some clever ideas that force me to think about why I agree or disagree, hadn't thought of that angle before, good mental exercise.
"Caught! Exposed as fake!"
"I just don't get their standard?!"
Not perfect, just fun.