Chris Rock

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INTERVIEWER

For all the current conversation about income inequality, class is still sort of the elephant in the room.

CHRIS ROCK

Oh, people don’t even know. If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets. If the average person could see the Virgin Airlines first-class lounge1, they’d go, “What? What? This is food, and it’s free, and they … what? Massage? Are you kidding me?”

-- Chris Rock at Vulture.com

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H. G. Wells

Reading a little about H. G. Wells, I look into his novel "The New Machiavelli", which, hotly enough, seems to be about clash between sex and political idealism. I have to put it on my wish list. However, I can get a quotation from the book now, thanks to Wikipedia. In this excerpt, the speaker is denouncing Victorian and Edwardian morality, which I suppose essentially means Christian morality and Anglo Puritanism, as he plans on leaving England.

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"Thank God! I'll soon be out of it! The shame of it! The very savages in Australia initiate their children better than the English do to-day. Neither of us was ever given a view of what they call morality that didn't make it show as shabby subservience, as the meanest discretion, an abject submission to unreasonable prohibitions! meek surrender of mind and body to the dictation of pedants and old women and fools. We weren't taught—we were mumbled at!"

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Writing Life

I have been thinking again about giving my first hours of the morning back to writing, as I have been somewhat pleased with my efforts lately. It is not that I think my product is marketable or admirable, but I continue to be impressed by the little sparkiness of creativity that comes from giving some of one's time and energy to crafting sentences or phrases on the page, in the way that surprising associations will come to the fore, and the way that your racing mind will work out your sentences for you as you type. It can feel as though there is something worthwhile inside you that is looking to break out, if only you will give it a chance.

The problem is that I cannot honestly see myself doing anything but more journaling or more playing around with quotations. If that is right, I would prefer to leave my best hours to filling out my little journals and to my reading and quote-gathering. My life is not rich enough for more journal entries. I try to think of other projects. I would love to work to conjure up my own story-universe, and it would not even need to aspire to become a novel or any real book.

I would be content enough if it would only contain other characters besides myself relating something beyond what I ate for breakfast or thought about this afternoon. The characters can be as flat and unrealistic and unconvincing as a bad cartoon, and their situations and problems can be as compelling as a TV test-pattern. But there has to be something there for me to chase down with my sentences. Or, alternatively, I would not mind writing just about my days and disappointments if I could at least turn them into halfway decent poetry. And therein lies the rub. My mind goes blank, dead as my future and my love life, so that it is better just to read others and collect the tidbits from their works that capture my imagination. My little writing session in the afternoon when I rise from my nap is more than enough for writing more journal entries, such as this one. My sorry life cannot withstand much more self-examination, as it only begs to be put down like a sick suffering dog.

The Natural World

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