“Okay. Do it. But go easy …”

“Never fear. I’m not crazy.”

Philippe Djian’s “Betty Blue” Translated by Howard Buten

All styles are good except the tiresome sort.

L’Enfant prodigue (1738), Preface — Voltaire

Notes from 2001, August [XX]

Subject: How are we gonna get the ball rolling on these letters. is it a little mad? Why do we do this to ourselves? Part 2

What will happen to the letters?

You can go mad tying yourself in knots thinking about that one, can’t you—just, wondering. But it’s the hypotheticals that get you through the day. It quietens the “voice” —I don’t know what else, the fuck to call it, or how distinguishable it is from hearing voices—fine lines, baby. I’m sure we all have one—an internal, constant, running commentary. It’s when it gets the raging-hump or flaming-paddies, develops ODD¹ and starts criticising everything, that it becomes a challenge. It’s like having an asshole swatting in your brain. My God. Yep, yep, yep there’s also the uppers: solid wakefulness, like humming at 100% —when it don’t sleep, you don’t sleep. It’s an asshole.

So, what of the letters? I feel quite sad about it, now I’ve thought about it.

Edit: Not for me—for the letters—which, and I know, I know, I know what you’re thinking—and honestly, I have zero fucks to give one way or the other: it is how it is. Consider it my “intention” and come back at the end and decide whether I need a fuck (I see what you made me do there).

While it may not be totally normal (whatever that means), I believe it might be ‘not as strange‘ as it should be.

Let me walk you through what I mean.

If they’re left unread, they won’t become portraits like the books we read do. We might only bring the one voice (ok, ok, ok most of us bring only one voice)—but it’s a simulacrum of our visual and aural selves. When we listen to the prose, there’s an intricate dance between silent influences: the writer’s intention; the final text; and what the reader brings with them … to it.

Edit: We’ve all read crappy novels proving an author’s intention can’t always be realised—the struggle’s just the same in the good ones, just less obviously. It’s QED that what the reader takes away from the text is no longer determined by it, so in this context—the author is irrelevant—their text is a text, is a text, and the text will be, what it is, just as the extraction of meaning is solely the reader’s purview. Texts are living things, they change—over time and from reader to reader.(this could be my God is dead moment, right?)

What can be clarified by one reader, is a mystery to another—and an intrigue discovered by another, is nothing more than a cigar in its natural state for the next—according to the guy who thinks everything they read is subversive or reactionary romance— yeah, me neither—It’s no longer the writer’s job to make it make sense.

That’s what makes it art.

Once it’s done, you cease to be the authority—it’s how it works. It’s how its always worked. If you wanna keep butting in clarifying what things mean—STOP CALLING IT ART—Rigid intention limits the continuum of readers’ interpretation. There is no scale to the former—the latter is infinite.

You, see?

So … I’m sad about what will happen to the letters, because what they mean today won’t be what they mean tomorrow—unread, they simply remain an intention without meaning.

You see, the writer’s input can never change. They have a vision, try to realise it, and infuse it with meaning—but that’s over the second the reader has it in their hands. And every reader does it, because every reader brings something to it.

Which is why I feel sorry for the letters.

They aren’t going to be read, which leaves them—meaningless. I am literally in the process of creating a collection of—no—a mass of meaninglessness.

And I don’t have a fuck to give you, because at some point, they’re going to mean everything.

You just wait and see. Everything.

—JustD

¹Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is a behavioral disorder that occurs in children. It’s characterized by challenging or defiant behavior and difficulty managing emotions. A child with ODD may often become angry, lose their temper, argue with adults, or purposely annoy others. ERGO: my internal voice is a fucking child.

*I have been unable to find a credit for the image— I will not stop looking, and this will be updated. It’s an incredible photo.