Ever since I first heard the word juxtaposition, it has intrigued me. Why is this concept so important that it has its own word? It has always felt good to say it, with its many shapes and tones. But only after I started this blog, at the age of 40, did I begin to grasp its power.
Before I was diagnosed with a terminal case of whimsy, I spent years reading and writing short stories, hoping to produce the one that would get printed in The New Yorker. But I became stuck, squeezing all my creative energy down one narrow and rigid road. It was depressing. Here I had dedicated years and all I had to show for it was miles of rubbish.
This is perfectly normal.*
Everything began to change when I saw a correspondence by Saul Steinberg printed in The Paris Review, illustrated with his drawings. I assumed (wrongly) that he had written the words to go with the pictures or vise versa. So, I inserted drawings into some of my own essays and felt the stirrings of something profound and confounding.
I began to imagine a newsletter. A friend suggested starting a blog. Instead of repressing my terminal case of whimsy, I embraced it, making each day whatever I was inspired to make. After two and half years of this, I realized that what I was making was a novel of juxtapositions.
Thank you for visiting @ A Terminal Case of Whimsy
*See “The Gap” with Ira Glass, a 2 minute 18 second video by frohlocke.
No comments:
Post a Comment