Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Fringe



It's really dawning on me that reading is a fringe activity, like campanology, or historical re-enactment. I suppose there's nothing that can be done about it, but it's quite peculiar to discover yourself on the fringe, when you always assumed, being yourself, that you were in the centre. No wonder I find it hard to make conversation with people in real life. I suppose my urgent desire to talk about the development of Nagai Kafu's style and themes throughout his life is a bit like... I can't even think of something it's like. We've already established that reading is about as mainstream as bat-husbandry, so I suppose talking about Kafu in mixed company would be like suddenly launching into a peroration on some of the more obscure cave creatures to share an isolated and only recently discovered subterrene ecosystem where evolution has taken an alternate course.

Actually, that sounds pretty damned exciting to me. I'm trying to think of something that would convey boredom and obscurity to 'other people' (who are hell). But I already know now that my finger's not on the pulse of the human race. Is it still alive? Is it dead? Who knows? Who cares, frankly, as long as I can read Nagai Kafu?



Anyway, I certainly can't talk to people about football. I mean, sorry. I try to be tolerant, but after a while I really just get pissed off with the way it's forced down your windpipe with a goose-fattening funnel everywhere you go. Why do men talk about sport? I once heard one writer ask another. And the conclusion was more or less because men are afraid to talk about anything at all and simply need something neutral to talk about to prove that they're not homosexual or something.

And any-fucking-way, why should I be tolerant of people talking about football in mixed company, when no one is ever tolerant of Nagai Kafu in mixed company? That's a metaphor, that is. For lots of things.



So, please excuse me if I don't hide my boredom on that subject, though I occasionally try.

So, yeah, this is me. I mean the Steve Buscemi character rather than the Thora Hird character.

Well, thank god for my blog, that's all I can say.

Hmmm. This was meant to be a short and pithy post.

IQ's a funny thing, isn't it? You know how you get albums, books, films and so on rated with stars or numbers? Don't you think they should stop doing that, and that it's the most infantile habit on Earth? Any review that is accompanied by a star or number rating is automatically a piece of shit that's not worth reading. I remember a hilarious comment left under one of these reviews online, which said something like, "So, what's the different between 71 and 71.4?", to which someone had replied, "Well, that's easy - 0.4". But IQ is exactly the same principle. Hasn't it ever struck anyone how ironic it is that people who are supposed to be defining intelligence are themselves so jaw-droppingly stupid that they think they can use the star-review system?

I just about hate humans. Really.

Anyway, I'll probably write another happening and finger-on-the-pulse blog entry later today. Maybe.

Labels: Nagai Kafu, reading