Pope.L, Failure #33 - Red Clouds (2004-6) Photo Cred: Mitchell Ines & Nash
For the last few weeks, I've been overwhelmed by my own imposter syndrome. Everything I write and say feels like a regurgitation of something I've already read or heard thats just been left refrigerating in my stale brain, waiting to be reheated, chopped up and served as leftovers to my unsuspecting audience.
Perhaps I've been reading too much Kenneth Goldsmith. Goldsmith, Artist, writer, and professor, teaches "Uncreative Writing" at UPenn. Since reading his essay in the Lunch Bytes Anthology: No Internet, No Art, and finding (to my own dismay) that I agree with his proposition, my brain feels likes it's been involuntarily submerged in molasses. Here, have a taste of Kenneth's argument:
"With an unprecedented amount of available text, our problem is not needing to write more of it; instead, we must learn to negotiate the vast quantity that exists. How I make my way through this thicket of information - how I manage it, parse it, organize and distribute it - is what distinguishes my writing from yours."*
Avoiding futile attempts at newness is not a Kenny G original thought. Goldsmith sites a number of other artists, writers and critics who exist in the realm of "unoriginal genius." Marjorie Perloff's term "unoriginal genius" (and the title of her book) supports the classically postmodern concept that we are in a post-original thought age. Our concepts of "originality" are romantic and outdated and "an updated notion of genius would [instead] have to center around one's mastery of information and its dissemination." (24)
According to Goldsmith, "The secret: the suppression of self-expression is impossible. Even when we do something as seemingly 'uncreative' as retyping a few pages, we express ourselves in a variety of ways." (31) It is my hope that composing my own consciously uncreative work will, paradoxically, free my molasses mind from its own redundancy and regurgitation.
Fernando Botero, Pope Leo X (1964) beside popular "y tho" meme circulating the Internet since 2014
***
A SILLY HAT
Family lore had it that, with only a silly hat, he would be America's first pope.
But how did he get to be so unique?
A psychedelic drug?
An advanced course on transcending the retirement community?
The white-capped peaks of Washington State's Olympic Peninsula?
Mediation on a cliff in Central America?
Priesthood?
The law?
The supreme court?
Consent?
Therapy?
Transpersonal disabilities?
Shutting down his heart?
Dowsing, the art of divining energy with art deco?
An education?
Driving?
Dementia?
Canada?
Public recreation?
Her hand?
Mrs. Shields?
Mr. Shields?
Nikki Sanchez?
Briony Penn?
Stephanie Green?
Sue Rodriguez?
Diego?
His wife?
His favorite wife?
His favorite daughter?
His other daughter?
A small white poodle?
The Great Unfolding?
Dry food?
A cocktail of pain medication?
Blacking out?
A long-term sleeping bag?
His delicate maroon chair?
A doctor's gift?
The aura of a university volleyball team?
Captain Copper Rod?
The tingling in his little carin' heart?
Bridge lessons at the local seniors center?
Rotisserie chicken legs with gravy?
A panel discussion?
An unusual idea?
Civil rights?
The hood?
Old-fashioned music and booze?
Helping people lessons?
Intellectual freedom?
Hand-thrown pottery?
Personal control?
Compromise?
Playing chicken?
Deep psychological pain?
Vacation?
1946?
1971?
2007?
March 24?
A precious second?
The last few months?
Riches?
Dignity?
Gravity?
Trust?
His tormented thoughts?
A devilish, devilish little bald eagle?
7,191 bandaids?
General use?
Living well?
Dying well?
***
Every phrase in A Silly Hat is repurposed from "At His Own Wake, Celebrating Life and the Gift of Death," an article in Thursday's New York Times written by Catherine Porter.**
*Kenneth Goldsmith, "From Uncreative Writing" in No Internet, No Art (24)
**Catherine Porter, "At His Own Wake, Celebrating Life and the Gift of Death," The New York Times, May 25, 2017.