R. Kelly--Ignition (Remix) (mp3)
Depending on what time of day you stumble upon this blog, you are likely to read to read sometimes distinctly different versions of the same post. I'm not talking about the correction of misspelled or filling in of missing words (thought that does happen all to frequently). I am, believe it or not, talking about reconceptulization.
Depending on what time of day you stumble upon this blog, you are likely to read to read sometimes distinctly different versions of the same post. I'm not talking about the correction of misspelled or filling in of missing words (thought that does happen all to frequently). I am, believe it or not, talking about reconceptulization.If you're a Johnny-On-The-Spot-Check-The-Blog-First-Thing kind of person, we certainly appreciate you, but you may not be getting the best version. I often finish posts late at night and schedule them to "launch" at 12:01 AM, and things can be a bit fuzzy by then, so even though I read over what I've written, I'm usually more pleased to have the post written than certain that I've said everything that I want to say.
One of the pleasures of writing this blog is the knowledge that whenever I see something that I don't like, I can quickly go back and change it, even rethink it, to make it clearer or even, God willing, funnier. The journalist with an absolute deadline does not have that option. In fact, even when I put myself on a tight deadline, which I often do, I can still go back to the post and tinker with it over and over.
Most of us, I think, are tinkerers. We like to fiddle around with little stuff, trying to get it a little more right, whether it's the decoration of a room or an Ipod playlist. People who write tend to do the same thing. If I'm sending out an email to a lot of people, I'll tend to go over it 20 or 30 times trying to get it right, though in my obsession to perfect, sometimes the different layers of the same reworked group of words don't quite go together, and because I've looked at it so many times, I can't see the mistake.
I know that talking about writing is boring, but think about the larger concept of revision. We spend a lot of our time inside of our heads replaying, revising, and correcting what has already happened. Usually, by then, it is way too late. Great comebacks and witticisms are so contextual that while "what I should have said is..." may get a chuckle from a sympathetic listener, that is more an acknowledgement of support than an affirmation that the words still have any power, given that they have been constructed for a moment that has passed.
"In our heads, there is the right thing to say."
In our heads, if we just have enough time to think it through, we can win every argument. In our heads, if we can just clear away the clutter, there is the right thing to say to make the point, to soothe the hurting, to woo the potentially wooable, even to fix the ills of the world. In our heads, given the infinite power of our minds, we trust that as the train of ideas continually rushes past us, eventually the perfect expression will signal to the conductor, have the train stopped at our station, and get off.
And that's the attraction of putting words down on a computer, posting them to a site like this. I don't have to wait for that and I'm not stuck either. While Thomas Friedman is locked into what he wrote in Tuesday's column or David Letterman is having to apologize and to try to clarify what he meant about which Palin daughter, I can keep tinkering and adjusting. "That is not what I meant," says T.S. Eliot's Prufrock, "That is not what I meant at all," but here at The Bottom, I can select a fine chisel and circle the subject and keep chipping away and maybe get closer.
It's a luxury we rarely enjoy in other parts of our lives.
R. Kelly is available at Itunes.
Most of us, I think, are tinkerers. We like to fiddle around with little stuff, trying to get it a little more right, whether it's the decoration of a room or an Ipod playlist. People who write tend to do the same thing. If I'm sending out an email to a lot of people, I'll tend to go over it 20 or 30 times trying to get it right, though in my obsession to perfect, sometimes the different layers of the same reworked group of words don't quite go together, and because I've looked at it so many times, I can't see the mistake.
I know that talking about writing is boring, but think about the larger concept of revision. We spend a lot of our time inside of our heads replaying, revising, and correcting what has already happened. Usually, by then, it is way too late. Great comebacks and witticisms are so contextual that while "what I should have said is..." may get a chuckle from a sympathetic listener, that is more an acknowledgement of support than an affirmation that the words still have any power, given that they have been constructed for a moment that has passed."In our heads, there is the right thing to say."
In our heads, if we just have enough time to think it through, we can win every argument. In our heads, if we can just clear away the clutter, there is the right thing to say to make the point, to soothe the hurting, to woo the potentially wooable, even to fix the ills of the world. In our heads, given the infinite power of our minds, we trust that as the train of ideas continually rushes past us, eventually the perfect expression will signal to the conductor, have the train stopped at our station, and get off.
And that's the attraction of putting words down on a computer, posting them to a site like this. I don't have to wait for that and I'm not stuck either. While Thomas Friedman is locked into what he wrote in Tuesday's column or David Letterman is having to apologize and to try to clarify what he meant about which Palin daughter, I can keep tinkering and adjusting. "That is not what I meant," says T.S. Eliot's Prufrock, "That is not what I meant at all," but here at The Bottom, I can select a fine chisel and circle the subject and keep chipping away and maybe get closer.
It's a luxury we rarely enjoy in other parts of our lives.
R. Kelly is available at Itunes.
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