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I'm having trouble mustering up the energy to finish writing a song that I started a good year ago.  I have a bit that I'm proud of, a few lines, and I've just found a good way to structure the whole thing, but I can't seem to force myself to write.  Be creative, dammit.  I've started this blog in an attempt to get used to writing again.

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Here's a different one that's 1/4 finished; the words, anyway:

Old gray man, would you please

Throw your wand out of sight

For the crowd is assailed

By the bright light, dream-seeming.

Ha.  Not really much of a song, yet.  More just....a sentence.

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I finished the second to last chapter of Ulysses today.  I need to read it (the chapter) again, since I feel a bit underwhelmed.  I think the problem is that I've come to look forward to each chapter's epic confrontation between man and logos.  Odysseus battles gods and monsters, while Leopold Bloom battles the English language, the very stuff of creation.  From episode to episode, despite the stylistic weight smothering him, Bloom emerges more human(e) than....hmm...than what?  More human than anti-human, I guess.  Human, antihuman; real, imaginary; love, hate; thoughtful, thoughtless.  

So, when the Ithaca episode (the chapter just completed) is presented with a sort of total objectivity as its stylistic device, I read and find myself uncomfortable at this...raw?... presentation of a human being (who never existed, I guess, but who cares?).  Am I uncomfortable with such a complete representation of what it is to be human?  Can I only handle an edited view of people that I know?  How much do I choose not to see, or, at least, choose not to think about?

So, I was not underwhelmed, I guess, but, rather, uncomfortable.  Maybe mixed with a little boredom.  Because, really how interesting is a real person?  Is it easy to stomach an acquaintance coming up to you and relating every single thing that he or she has thought about and experienced for the past week?  

(Ha! And, isn't that what I'm doing by writing a blog?  Ouch.)

And, if the book celebrates the epic of the ordinary, the 10 year day, have I missed the point by wanting to leave the party early?

Do I really want to know Leo Bloom this well, or do I prefer to see only his cunning and strength, manifested as a humanistic integrity and understanding?

Or, maybe I'm being to hard on myself.  Maybe, Bloom's thoughts as he readies for bed are just less interesting than his thoughts as a man of action.  

I'll read it again, see what I think.

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