Manlyfesto

Why a third blog?
I want to do something which I would not want to do in Straddling The Atlantic and which Dirk Hardwood is too constrictive to allow.

So...what is that, exactly?
Artists doodle. Photographers take throw away pictures of their breakfast at an odd angle which makes it resemble the obelisk from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think that those who engage in either of those artistic endeavours have a certain privilege in that they can just throw shit down and not have to explain where it came from or where it is going. Meanwhile, non-poetic writing has a much stronger pull towards expanding in either direction along the line of teleological development.

But sometimes I get a burst of inspiration and all I want to do is write a page or two of a specific moment in a story without attending to anything but that one moment or scene without any snaky tendrils of continuity pulling at my heels. This is a desire I tried to articulate in the beginning of my Dirk Hardwood notion, but which I can more properly explore in something far less structured than good ol’ Dirk.

Why not do it on paper or in a word file?
As anyone who shares my interests and has known me could say, I not only like to share but often feel compelled to do so. Comments have been placed within reach of whoever wants to post them and all levels of reader participation are encouraged. Hell, if you feel inspired to write what came before or after something I put here, wing it up in the comments and I could very well post it in the main body if it tickles me just right.

Why not do this in Straddling The Atlantic?
Because I don’t want to dilute STA. I feel that right now it has a good structure and I want to keep it on target with posts that primarily relate to my ladder climbing in England and the sort of conversational posts which, I’d like to think, are akin to having a natter with me. Finally, there is a healthy possibility that what I write here could alienate some of the people who read STA and I’d like to show those readers a bit of respect.

So…you talk about being unfettered and possibly alienating people, does that mean this is going to devolve into a load of tripe with no relevance to anyone but you? Are you going to swear and use racially charged vocabulary because that’s “edgy”, you pretentious bastard?
I hope not! As with any exercise with a minimum of structure, that is a danger. I do feel that swearing only has as much power as the reader gives it and that large swaths of society have become afraid to discuss race (amongst other things) to the detriment of common discourse. But I plan to be vigilant and I have no delusions about being a crusader of enlightenment, bringing brilliantly polished insights from the lofty cliffs of my mind down to the swarming, sweaty plebeians below.

I just….I see the things that more unrestrained individuals like R. Crumb do…or I read something anachronistic, like John Jakes The Asylum World which shamelessly posits a future split entirely along the white/black racial divide…and I envy their freedom. But envy isn’t satisfying and I would like to explore Bill Cosby’s style of finding humour without cruelty or filth just as much as I would also like to free myself from the bullying brand of political correctness which I know I have at least partially ingested over the years. That’s what I’m getting at when I talk about being unfettered and I mention potential alienation more because I know that people come to STA for the kind of content I’ve stated, not for what I will be doing here. I want to remove barriers so as to allow my mind to wander into new fields, not as sloppy justification to press the big red button labelled “Offend” over and over in teenage masturbatory provocation.

Okay, but you know that anything you put on the internet is basically there forever? That at some point in the future anybody could use things like that Internet Archive Project to dig up something you said and perhaps use it against you in another setting?
Well, they’re welcome to try. Outside of this first entry, I don’t plan on qualifying or justifying a damn thing unless it interests me to do so. I’m disgusted by the lazy pundits who trawl through the lower intestines of the internet to find ten year old forum posts by which they think they can crucify public figures. Anybody who tries to pull that nonsense will get both barrels straight to their sense of self worth.

Right, one last thing, why the name? Is there going to be a lot of content to do with religion?
Well the name means something one way but I’d argue it means nothing of consequence at all. The point of origin, from my perspective, would be Richard Dawkins as it is a way in which he referred to the world’s most popular invisible friend that made me pump my fist in the air and execute a saucy, 35 degree swing of the hip. It’s stuck in my mind for some time and it seemed as good a name as any for this endeavour since I will be somewhat playing the role, whipping small worlds into existence and snuffing them out at a whim.

But I’d argue that it means nothing at all as it will in no way dictate the content of the site. When it comes to titles and names of works (or bands, for that matter) I am coming more and more to the line of thinking that we need to stop plumbing them for such depths of meaning and simply accept them the way we accept the names of people. There is such a deluge of content in the world, one which is getting stronger and stronger, that to get hung up on titles is to waste a good deal of energy and thought. Something something “book by its cover” right?

Right.

Let’s get started then.