Anti-Preface
Anti-Preface
I've been asked by several readers to write some sort of
key or guide to this site's body of work, an elucidation of select texts or
an apology (in the classical sense) for the apparent opaqueness and difficulty.
They believe it would be of help and perhaps a kindness to existing and potential
readers. I could speak of simultaneity, of the intricacies of self-exploration
and of the intuitive and complex weaves of language, but the writings already
speak of these (for better or worse). I resist (with heart and mind) playing
tour guide for my own landscapes when I'm so pervasive within them—and
isn't autonomous discovery among the finer joys of reading? I wonder whether
it's an intellectual sin to expect the utmost (even with the willingness to
forgive all shortfalls) of one's self and one's peers (one's friends and one's
loves and every stranger). I don't think my work is any more difficult than
most well-considered art. Those who hear its iterative harmonies (polyphony)
won't suffer under its structural intents. Those who hear only its dissonances
(cacophony) might wince and fidget and go elsewhere—our world harbors
a glorious wealth of more straightforward melodic writers to whose compositions
and craft they can attend. If you've already made a genuine effort, if you've
patiently given it your open attention without recompense for your time, it
would be condescending or bullying for me to try to explicate or compel. The
work itself should lure and astonish, and the work itself must teach you how
to read it. It isn't your fault if you don't hear it—it certainly isn't
because you lack education or sensitivity or some sort of critical code. And
it isn't because I won't come clean (be transparent) about that which I'm
unclear, when supposed clarity could actually be naïve effrontery. It
might just come down to affinity (one of the simpler rules of attraction)
and timing (that most crucial and inscrutable element of exchange).