SOUND
by“How do you know if you’re innovating, if you don’t know that you’re imitating?”
(paraphrased from Kiese Laymon’s Facebook page).
I’m starting this month off with this paraphrased quotation for a few reasons. For writers and thinkers, social media definitely exists as a legitimate space for writing and the hashing out of new ideas. Paradoxically, the internet is a difficult place to actually discuss anything. Discourse and discovery are important to uncovering the new and old truths that make the possibility of art exciting. For me, the act of reading and listening to music are opposite, but twin experiences. True excitement. The silence of being totally engrossed in what I’m reading is mirrored only when I am completely taken by the sound of music.
What are you looking forward to this month and this fall? There is a lot popping in arts and culture. If you are an artist, do you immerse yourself or isolate yourself from the work of others when you’re creating? How do you know what to release and what to keep?
These are some questions on my mind this month. I’ll be reading my work in public for the first time in a while–all facts, no fiction at the Dragonfly (3921 St Claude) on October 10th at 7:30 pm. Also, look out for Heavy (An American Memoir) this month, October 15th from Simon & Schuster.
“By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.”