Absurdity, Awareness of One’s Own

What absurdities did you commit today? If you know the answer, you are probably wrong. Absurdities are like assumptions: they are the things we do not know we are making. But we can be as certain as death and taxes that we are committing absurdities and making assumptions.

You don’t believe it? Imagine a Martian anthropologist: a little green man comes down to Earth and (unseen) observes you throughout the day. When you go to bed, he goes back to Mars.

‘How was it?’ they say.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘you’re not going to believe this, but – don’t laugh – the person I was watching really, actually, and with a perfectly serious demeanour . . .’And then he tells them what you did. And it was indeed absurd. And we have no way of telling what it is.

To lose the sense of our own fundamental absurdity is a serious error. It might be argued – it might have been argued nearly 2,500 years ago, in the second (and lost) book of Aristotle’s Poetics – that comedy exists to remind us of our absurdity, in much the same way that the slave would whisper in the victor’s ear, as he rode in triumph through Rome, ‘Remember you are only mortal’. Which we might say is a concealed description, not of what they want to sell, but of what we’re really buying . . . Why are they always little? Why are they always green? And why (when it’s the one thing that, whatever else they are, they aren’t) are they always men? An assumption, and an absurd one. It might, too, be argued that when we still had no option but to believe in GOD (or at least THE GODS), we also had no option but to believe in our own relative insignificance; in the face of which, our tremendous, earnest, grim-faced preoccupations with our worldly lives became clearly absurd. Now we have options. The best of those options is to believe that we are here by happenstance, by a glorious and glamorous accident. No need to feel little; no need either, it seems, to feel astonishingly lucky that all the odds lined up in our favour and here we are. Instead, we seem to be feeling more and more earnest and self-absorbed. Everyone wants their rights to be respected. Everyone wants to be a celebrity. People find things ‘offensive’: a depressingly infantile response, being not a judgement but a whine. Now comedy is itself penned increasingly into a cramped corral where it cowers behind neutral language, terrified of giving offence to the men who control the money, who are in turn terrified of giving offence to those who pay the money. The cry is for ‘responsible’ comedy, as foolish a concept as ‘safe’ sex. Even cartoons are not immune: The Simpsons has been attacked by the Fat Police who have counted – counted – Homer’s doughnut intake, and want it cut down and replaced by – mmmm! – raw carrot snacks and healthy Lo-Cal yogurt.

And so, assailed by such absurdities, we have lost sight of our own. But the fate which awaits us is grim. Those who coldly condemn everyone else’s absurdities while clinging to the notion of their own seriousness are destined to become politicians. (While those who do the opposite are fated to be satirists. Which, one might wonder, is the more absurd?) ‘Virus-unfriendly’ sex might be tolerable, but safe sex? As absurd as the tabloids’ ‘Sex Romps’. Has anyone ever had a ‘sex romp’ – presumably where everyone bounces on the bed a lot, and makes little witticisms, and remains good chums afterwards with no recriminations?

From Lost Worlds (Paperback)
By Michael Bywater

What Does It MeanTo Be Human?

by Quentin Crisp

When Professor Connolly : I am not earning money while I am doing nothing. Which is sad. But if I were rich, I would never do anasked me what it meant to be human, I was very sorry that I was not a scholar and had no philosophical point of view to express. More than not being a scholar, I am not really a human being. I do not mind spending long hours alone, and I never find something to do. This is part of my nature.My sister reminded me before she died that she and my mother sat on each side of the fireplace and occupied themselves with darning socks, and knitting, and writing letters on their laps. I lay as a child on the rug between them, and once an hour one of them said, "Why don’t you get something to do?" And I said, "Why should I?" That is a question I cannot answer. Why should I have something to do?Of course, there is the theory that time is money. It is an American theoryything. I was asked by a paper, "If you suddenly had a million dollars, what would you do?" And I said, "Go to bed, and never get up again!" This was a great disappointment to the people who asked me the question. But idleness is my only occupation, and people are my only hobby.If I regard what I think is human, and perhaps I was asked precisely because I am not a human being and, therefore, have a detached view of the subject, I would say it was a preoccupation with the idea of death. The reason why people do not live alone and do not spend hours doing nothing is because they can hear time ticking by. Then they develop hobbies, which drive them mad. You may ask them, "Why do you do this?" They ultimately say, "Well, it helps kill time." I don’t want my time dead. Time is meant to be lived! Those who are not hopeless are worried that one day their lives will end. And, if you live long enough, of course, you long for it to end. That’s been my desire in recent times. I only hope to become extinct. But before all that, you must try everything. Have children. Behave in such a way that monuments are built to you. Rule the world! Have streets and theaters named after you. Write your autobiography. These are ways to stay alive, and this seems to be a preoccupation with being human.When I was younger and was not ill, I didn’t mind how long I lived. Now that every step of my life is painful, I long for death. If being human has any other special aspect it is that in every human being there are two people. One who sits in judgment on the other. The worldly, the doing person, acts irresponsibly, or nobly, or wisely, or foolishly, according to the mood or the situation. But inside him, further away, is an abstract spiritual being who never changes and who sits in judgment on him.This situation becomes evident when we hear people say, "I was ashamed of myself." Who is ashamed of whom? It is this duality between the active living organism and the contemplative inner-self that sits in judgment that constitutes the whole human being. This is, I think, what constitutes a human being.

PERSEPOLIS

must read!

Rothko's light

Kleine Prinzessin

Down The Rabbit-Hole

ALICE was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid) whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close to her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waist-coat pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waist-coat pocket or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

BY LEWIS CARROLL

Just do it

"I used to know this girl named Suzie Marlango. And her brother's band name was Joe Marlango. Joe always wanted to kill me. He sang in a bandcalled the Rodbenders. Suzie Marlango used to wear these angora sweaters. I'm crazy about angora sweaters... I guess It's kind of a hang-up of mine. She had angora socks, and angora shoes. I believe she was originally from Angora. I don't know where she is anymore, but every time I see an angora sweater, I think maybe inside will be Susie Marlango. He-he-he... Maybe she's in New Orleans. Well, I'll be there..."

TOM WAITS
('Cold Beer On A Hot Night / Romeo is Bleeding', Syney 1979)Intro for 'I Wish I Was In New Orleans'