Red Thread(s)

I can't think of a justification. Not like I need one, but my absence here has been due to several factors, one being November's "National Novel Writing Month" project: write a 50,000 word novel during the month. And not to come off as vaguely Mailerish about it, but it was like running a marathon sans endorphins, but with the ability to smoke and drink coffee. 60K and it's not done, and it won't be read by eyes other than mine. "The search says more than the discovery, &c., &c., &c..."
I made an interesting discovery last night, writing beyond any sort of reason (really, one of the principal motivations for assuming such a project): accidentally calling a character named Emily "Camilla." Sometimes, at the limits of exhaustion, or simply distraction, it's almost as if one sees a word, somehow visualizes the text as / just before one writes / speaks. Or it's sounded out; I can recognize the m-i-l common to both names. Or it could be a mental slip, falling back onto that first sentence of The Recognitions: "Even Camilla had enjoyed masquerades, of the safe sort where the mask may be dropped at that critical moment it presumes itself as reality."

Best comment came from my mother, when I was about 12,000 words into it: "Do you know what it's about?"
And if you want to know, I could say, "Remember that 5-song New Order e.p. from 1981-82, the one with the grey cover and that Schwitters-like collage on it? It's about that, kind of. Then I digress."

BTW, according to the notes to the New Order RETRO box, the song "Mesh" doesn't exist. It's really called "Cries and Whispers," and was labeled wrong, so I suppose we've been laboring under some kind of collective hallucination for 20+ years. Which is funny, the laboring under a collective hallucination thing, when it involves a pop song, as opposed to, well, you know, capitalism and stuff.

"I'm actually worse than a romantic - I'm a sentimentalist." -- Archie Shepp

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I'm not terribly happy living in The Great Satan right now. Cultural, classist, or elitist assumptions aside, we're a nation of dumb-ass hicks. & Not that I was thrilled about Kerry in any way other than as "Not-Bush." It's really like cheering on any team that plays the Baltimore Ravens, or the Yankees. Only George Steinbrenner hasn't killed 100,000 Iraqis. How's THAT freedom taste? Oy.
Lenin had some good observations this morning:

Wednesday, November 03, 2004
If Bush has won...
It is looking very close, but I expect Bush will pull it off by hook or, probably, crook. There are a few recommendations I would like to make, and I offer them purely as items for consideration and not as accusations or declarations of my unique intellectual suppleness.

1) No disavowals. If he has won, and by the margin in the popular vote that the polls suggest, then it isn't just because of Kerry's lacklustre campaign. The high turnout suggests that any result is a properly representative one. America will have experienced a conservative reflux that is not reducible to the mechanics of electoralism.

2) No Nader-bashing. Even if Nader has gently swung the poll in one or two states with his sadly squeezed vote (that's going to be my favourite euphemism), there is probably good reason why many Americans couldn't trust their vote to Kerry. This is a failure on the Democrats' part, and reactive Naderophobia will signify denial.

3) No despair. Kerry would probably have given the Republicans more or less what they wanted in the absence of effective protest. Bush showed great ineptitude in his first term, which is always the easiest term for any President. The left that got so electorally organised around Kerry ought to be able to get its shit together for a sustained campaign to curb Bush's ability to act. Support for the war is still low, and will in all likelihood decline.

Onward.