#vicchesnutt — Public Fediverse posts

cw for abstract discussion of suicide in the latter paragraphs and the song
So… Tom just retreated from the stairs, and that's where I left off before I had to get up, take my meds, and take a breather.
The shadow puppets, the Pekinese dog. They make me think of Catch-22, of Snowden's Secret. I haven't read that book in about thirteen years, but I think about it a lot. I also thought of chapter 13 of A Scanner Darkly, where Donna goes into her self-justification, talking about Tony Amsterdam's door wreathed in sparks beyond which a nighttime scene, and about how it takes the utmost wisdom to use injustice to further justice. Even now that feels like dodging responsibility to me. I've never been religious, and am not inclined to believe there was ever a time, or layer of reality, where things meshed and worked and were right.
Coming at it from outside Abrahamic religions, I have to look up every little thing, and am more likely to think of Shakespeare references ("There is no darkness but ignorance") than of Isaac's blindness, even after it's directly referenced. I don't really know how any of the followers of those religions actually (and differently) see messianic figures, error/sin/misstep, the world itself, scripture, Jacob, Esau, Isaac, Abraham, G-d, or for that matter quaaludes.
It took me a while, but eventually I did figure out what the pervading feeling of this novel, esp. re: Johnny Truant, felt most like to me.
Vic Chesnutt [1] adapted a Stevie Smith poem to song, a poem that I'm reasonably certain was about suicide.
So, y'know, CW for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p994EMYQpPE
Lyrics:
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

I get the same emotion from the shadow puppets, the one night stands, and whatever it is that haunts and follows Johnny Truant.
I'm just gonna set aside for now the tentative conclusion that Zampanò was literally Jacob. There is so much to unpack there that I hardly know where to begin, mostly because I grew up an atheist in a new age neopagan household and was too autistic to completely absorb the vibes in our society, so a lot of Abrahamic religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or other, is understood by me only in a very vague academic manner, like I was trying to figure out which of somewhat varied anatomical models best fits the particular frog I'm trying to identify by its entrails.
And also there's a lot to talk about re: the Navidson Record, which is implicitly not a real thing, if (if) it's Zampanò using allegory to talk about gestures vaguely around everything. Especially re: Tom and . I do not yet feel qualified to talk about that either.
So yeah, that's about where I'm at. But at least I'm starting to understand why this book has not brought me terror, but only occasional bouts of uncontrolled sobbing.

1. It feels like it'd be an injustice not to state that Vic Chesnutt was to my knowledge an outspoken atheist.

cw for abstract discussion of suicide in the latter paragraphs and the song
So… Tom just retreated from the stairs, and that's where I left off before I had to get up, take my meds, and take a breather.
The shadow puppets, the Pekinese dog. They make me think of Catch-22, of Snowden's Secret. I haven't read that book in about thirteen years, but I think about it a lot. I also thought of chapter 13 of A Scanner Darkly, where Donna goes into her self-justification, talking about Tony Amsterdam's door wreathed in sparks beyond which a nighttime scene, and about how it takes the utmost wisdom to use injustice to further justice. Even now that feels like dodging responsibility to me. I've never been religious, and am not inclined to believe there was ever a time, or layer of reality, where things meshed and worked and were right.
Coming at it from outside Abrahamic religions, I have to look up every little thing, and am more likely to think of Shakespeare references ("There is no darkness but ignorance") than of Isaac's blindness, even after it's directly referenced. I don't really know how any of the followers of those religions actually (and differently) see messianic figures, error/sin/misstep, the world itself, scripture, Jacob, Esau, Isaac, Abraham, G-d, or for that matter quaaludes.
It took me a while, but eventually I did figure out what the pervading feeling of this novel, esp. re: Johnny Truant, felt most like to me.
Vic Chesnutt [1] adapted a Stevie Smith poem to song, a poem that I'm reasonably certain was about suicide.
So, y'know, CW for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p994EMYQpPE
Lyrics:
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

I get the same emotion from the shadow puppets, the one night stands, and whatever it is that haunts and follows Johnny Truant.
I'm just gonna set aside for now the tentative conclusion that Zampanò was literally Jacob. There is so much to unpack there that I hardly know where to begin, mostly because I grew up an atheist in a new age neopagan household and was too autistic to completely absorb the vibes in our society, so a lot of Abrahamic religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or other, is understood by me only in a very vague academic manner, like I was trying to figure out which of somewhat varied anatomical models best fits the particular frog I'm trying to identify by its entrails.
And also there's a lot to talk about re: the Navidson Record, which is implicitly not a real thing, if (if) it's Zampanò using allegory to talk about gestures vaguely around everything. Especially re: Tom and . I do not yet feel qualified to talk about that either.
So yeah, that's about where I'm at. But at least I'm starting to understand why this book has not brought me terror, but only occasional bouts of uncontrolled sobbing.

1. It feels like it'd be an injustice not to state that Vic Chesnutt was to my knowledge an outspoken atheist.

cw for abstract discussion of suicide in the latter paragraphs and the song
So… Tom just retreated from the stairs, and that's where I left off before I had to get up, take my meds, and take a breather.
The shadow puppets, the Pekinese dog. They make me think of Catch-22, of Snowden's Secret. I haven't read that book in about thirteen years, but I think about it a lot. I also thought of chapter 13 of A Scanner Darkly, where Donna goes into her self-justification, talking about Tony Amsterdam's door wreathed in sparks beyond which a nighttime scene, and about how it takes the utmost wisdom to use injustice to further justice. Even now that feels like dodging responsibility to me. I've never been religious, and am not inclined to believe there was ever a time, or layer of reality, where things meshed and worked and were right.
Coming at it from outside Abrahamic religions, I have to look up every little thing, and am more likely to think of Shakespeare references ("There is no darkness but ignorance") than of Isaac's blindness, even after it's directly referenced. I don't really know how any of the followers of those religions actually (and differently) see messianic figures, error/sin/misstep, the world itself, scripture, Jacob, Esau, Isaac, Abraham, G-d, or for that matter quaaludes.
It took me a while, but eventually I did figure out what the pervading feeling of this novel, esp. re: Johnny Truant, felt most like to me.
Vic Chesnutt [1] adapted a Stevie Smith poem to song, a poem that I'm reasonably certain was about suicide.
So, y'know, CW for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p994EMYQpPE
Lyrics:
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

I get the same emotion from the shadow puppets, the one night stands, and whatever it is that haunts and follows Johnny Truant.
I'm just gonna set aside for now the tentative conclusion that Zampanò was literally Jacob. There is so much to unpack there that I hardly know where to begin, mostly because I grew up an atheist in a new age neopagan household and was too autistic to completely absorb the vibes in our society, so a lot of Abrahamic religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or other, is understood by me only in a very vague academic manner, like I was trying to figure out which of somewhat varied anatomical models best fits the particular frog I'm trying to identify by its entrails.
And also there's a lot to talk about re: the Navidson Record, which is implicitly not a real thing, if (if) it's Zampanò using allegory to talk about gestures vaguely around everything. Especially re: Tom and . I do not yet feel qualified to talk about that either.
So yeah, that's about where I'm at. But at least I'm starting to understand why this book has not brought me terror, but only occasional bouts of uncontrolled sobbing.

1. It feels like it'd be an injustice not to state that Vic Chesnutt was to my knowledge an outspoken atheist.