Prelude, Looking for
oblio
Veteran
Joined: 25 Dec 2007
Age: 70
Gender: Male
Posts: 529
Location: 1 Observatree Close, Pointless Forest, Low Countries
So maybe this is the forum i have been looking for. There is this small collection of poems entitled Landschappen en andere gebeurtenissen (Landscapes and other events), by the Dutch... errr... hm, correction - by the dutch poet Gerrit Kouwenaar. This is my text, this is my language. This will be in my spelling. And you think i have made two mistakes already. I allways will - and that is three.
Once you quote something, the quote has to be correct.
Is that true... What was the next thing i wanted to say... i need to be careful, and carefull (not counting this four) to boot. I can see her reading this. The person i am indirectly addressing here would disagree - i think, imagining her having found this place in search of me, imagining her eyes reading what i said there... oops... she writes full of quotations and dark references and rarely provides proper sources. It's part of the challenge she poses. She is frightening - she is a goddess. She makes her own rules. I need to be careful - if she read this (no, not past tense), her eyes might widen, the look might sharpen, there just might be clouding with a risk of electrical storm. I have no idea how she seduced Zeus into lending her these devastating powers. I fear the dreaded sudden change of tone, does she call me Rob in any other circumstanza... and then the thundering six-lettered clap Laterz. and the doghouse it is and i am left at my desk bewildered... what happened what on earth did i say...
[Another point of view] Wasn't this supposed to be happening to her? Am i not the autistic one here? Isn't it supposed to be the NT partner time and again to be left in total incomprehension??? Am i not the one 'certified' and not just certifiable? Am i not the one by diagnosis, by definition and by law entitled to... consideration, allowances...?
{{aside:-} Just between you and me, so don't tell her, i think she has no idea about autism, she only thinks she does - i think it would be a miracle if it were any way different so that is totally forgivable, and even if she did... i know my autism is different still from most and she may think at times i am 'rigid' (not a word she would use) but really she has no idea how (relatively) flexible i am... darn I am ThePinkChameleon... but sure, allways that pinkness, that be me too.
Oops, this is a not-autism forum... I forgot... To lol or not to lol...
I think even the professionals in autism, and by believing our diagnostic and therapeutic and analytical masters most of us aspies... we have NO IDEA how intensely and totally pervasive the word pervasive actually intends to mean its meaning. Autism is not 'part' of us... the word part in itself seems to defeat the extension of the pervasive reach - there are no separate parts that are autistic, as there are no separate parts that are not.}
Yes, it is fully acceptable in one's running text to tap along the lines your writing calls forth in your mind... my mind is full of literary and musical and so many other... "quotes" and other memories. If it is one's aim to, in writing, present this as directly as possible... naming sources is so troublesome, for the writer and for the reader. So, well, she didn't require her disagreement defended in logical argument, she is her own truth and law - bit i am happy to volunteer her my services in her defense.
And yes, of course there is nothing wrong in rephrasing quotes to suit one's own literary purposes. All artists use quotation. In fact, playful quotation will often be their deliberate payment of homage to an influence. Just like science and many other things, art, and literature, are debates. I do it too, all the time... too often in fact... it can be seen as name dropping. But i guess that's why i like her writing style so much... even if i don't get a reference, i recognize it is one, i could check it out (oops robert, careful...) i will check it out (o will i find the time) i promise (do i?)
O this mind of mine... Summertime...
and the livin' ain't easy; prices jumping, unemployment's high.
Your dad ain't rich and your ma is ahookin', but baby please don't cry.
I don't even need to state my source. And sorry, i do apologize... Summertime i think is the best song ever written.
It is the most covered song (it was at some point measured by some dutch musicologists who also published a set with all covers - if i remember correctly), and we all know how easy it is for a cover to end up torturing the original. I have heard many attempts at murdering Summertime, all failed. The song simply stands. So for me to take such a cheap shot. I remember my brother Peter loved me singing my variation. I have always figured the Brainbox cover would be the one song to top off the funeral. I also remember one such occasion where it was played precisely then. Kaz Lux' voice... Jan Akkerman's guitar... yes... take it away
and then, silence [[insert Philip Glass reference]]
and then, a soft almost whispered voice, like a Triangle in the Jungle: "Alles van waarde is weerloos." (Lucebert)
Still... when presented AS a quote, standing aside, separate, the reader can see the source information is not part of the running text, can decide to ignore... and presented between those " " the quote must be correct, and precise, and state its source.
Landscapes and events... was all i needed, but i could not leave the source unnamed, the rest issued from there, from getting started, from setting a first careful step of this journey of thousands. I need to become, i need to take place. If i do not exist in the best of my language, how could i expect to be even close to becoming worthy of me.
I don't know just where i am going
but i'm going to try for the kingdom if i can
'cause it makes me feel like i'm a man
please note i did not finish the quote...
and yes, i have made a very big decision, but no i will not intend to nullify my life, au contraire i hope,
and NO i do not wish I was born a thousand years ago,
but YES i may sail the darkened seas, on a great big clipper ship, going from this land here to that
and yesss i would put on a sailor's suit and cap
and still allways looking for sugar man, and my sugar mam, and every step another toe edged closer to thee
_________________
a point in every direction is the same as no point at all - or is it
may your god forgive you
oblio
Veteran
Joined: 25 Dec 2007
Age: 70
Gender: Male
Posts: 529
Location: 1 Observatree Close, Pointless Forest, Low Countries
I have been an avid reader, albeit a while ago. I have no real visual recall, but i do recognize... anything out of order, and when i try to find something back in text... i do know at which line height of a page earlier i will be likely to find it. I know i sort of notice anything and everything, i just seem to not take pictures.
This is, i assume, why i will never be good enough to be a real winner at the card game of Spades. I played it for ages... And i believe there is a wonderful story there, but that will have to keep. I already knew i was bloody good, by playing the early online version as presented in early MS Windows Games or was it Entertainment... Games, it was - still is. I wasted years at some games right from the moment i installed my first Windows (3.11). But that was not online yet. For those in the know, I never did manage the get into the so-called Zone, and i seem to have missed a legendary period.
Playing cards... is very much about reading. And philosophy. And there is a fair amount of writers with genuine interest in games of chance generally. The dutch genius Multatuli wrote some of his best pages on methods of survival in a casino...
Spades is an offshoot of Bridge, spades is always trump and there is no contract bidding. All that saves a hell of a lot of time. In cricket speak, Spades is the T20 variant. Normally the game is played between two pairs of "pards", in chat reduced to p... (need a p p, brb p &c). The team bid the tally amount of tricks they either aim to take, and the game starts. I will spare you further particulars. Good pards, good play... it can become like dancing, truly. Playing cards can become true communication without words, i have had a few partners like that, and i promise it is a sensational feeling, This of course also explains how tempers get heated in post-hand debate. It can give valid grounds for divorce, i am sure. Better live in suburbia, and have a doghouse in a large garden...
There is so much paranoia online, and of course there is a lot of cheating... what on earth other do you think Skype was invented for... A decent site will prevent by means of IP-adress recognition, that couples can cheat by sitting across each other at the kitchen table, but i know such limitations are very limited indeed... it does not take much of an IT-nerd to circumvent.
I have had so many wonderful chatting games... with great pards and very nice opposition. But all in all, you need to be so careful in the game chat, because anything you say can and will be understood in the light of paranoia. Talking weather becomes a cold war spy novel... And yes... when i found WP and self-identified at age 49, virtually homeless, i never stopped feeling like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. After confirmation i decided real life had little for me, so i went online, in search of Spades Online... and maybe that would lead me out of the situation I still find myself in, in search therefore first of all, of a site, and then a partner. And i knew She (why always a she i have to ask myself) would have to be quite special... for i had been forced by the earlier MS Games pseudo-online to adapt a very weird, counter-intuitive style, a sort of anti-bridge approach, because the anonymous live pards disappeared at the first set-back and were replaced by a so-called "computer-player".
Later, at my real site, i was the only one who could actually play with the bots, who apparently had instinctively worked out most of the bot-heuristics. My play was also used by the single owner and programmer to improve the bottie programming. This lead to something else... i talked with my bottie... Some acquaintances were genuinely worried over me and my bottie (over the ocean, lol)(lmao)... It was ... well i did it for parody and fun chat, it would always get reaction at the table, but it also worked as a way to focus better on my bottie's play... because i knew how and when to be prepared for some very silly moves indeed, and therefore i sort of had to think from both points of view - not to mention the opposition... But i had the freedom to tell my bottie what to do next, because everybody obviously had to accept this could not possible be considered game chat, and thus cheating in flagranto.
This post wasn't going to be about Spades. Hm. I copied something from my post above, as i found my editing time expired, and there is no possible repair... just in the closing part:
If i do not exist in the best of my language, how could i expect to be even close to becoming worthy of me.
It should read, of course...:
If i do not exist in the best of my language, how could i expect to be even close to becoming worthy of thee.
This is so annoying, really, because it simply does not repair the terrible typo where it occurred, and nobody will take the time to have (yet) another look, and also notice how there is this rhyme in the prose, and that single line actually is by repetition part of the entire, almost poetically presented conclusion.
Repeating the entirety here doesn't solve things either... grrrrr... so much water under the bridge, everandever
The point about this post was about reading, surprisingly to you and me both, also as applied in a card game - but originally i just meant to at least signal my mistake... MEA CULPA... i have yet to come across my first absolutely mistake-free page... perfection is unattainable.
However, please bear in mind: there are typos (typoes?), and then there are typoids. James Joyce would not exist if there were no typoids, even in his days.
I will return to this Prelude, and i hope some of you will respond... this "telling" is aimed to become opened up and brought into touch with real life reality, so be welcome here meanwhile, dear reader,
and thanks for bearing with me.
I might address names next. Yes, i am oblio (not Oblio). And i do refer to myself at times as ThePinkChameleon - there are many other names, nice ones, not so nice ones. All aspies i assume have to deal with bullying, at least at the level of name calling end getting singled out. I think it is just part of a harsh reality, and we need to get to grips with it, the world at large will never be short of any next excuse to get anyone vulnerable. So i am very used to how nick names work. I also am quite aware of how names can work in literary context... i have a long list.
As i was discussing Spades, i am reminded my favourite name was nothing to do originally with Spades, but proved extremely practicable in the context of a game of controlled chance, with 52 cards in 4 suits of 13, and therefore thirteen tricks per hand.
I am aspiciously13
ttyl, thx
_________________
a point in every direction is the same as no point at all - or is it
may your god forgive you
