A Memeory of War

Part of this I already quoted, but here's the whole post. Not only does he include two more absurd portmanteaus ("mothertalk," "prisonfleshes"), he continues writing about the soldier "LeClaire," previously seen being ordered to shoot a child, and now apparently having gotten his "dick blown off," just like Jake from The Sun Also Rises.

Not only is he a bad writer, but he seems to mix real life memoir and complete fantasy without bothering to distinguish between them. I can't claim I know his intent here was to lie to his readers, or he thought his readers knew this was chiefly fiction, but he certainly doesn't alert readers to his curious style of mixing realfacts with shadowfictions, prisonreality with balloonanimalpoesyfakenotions.

It's also interesting that his ambition is not to be a journalist nor, of course, a soldier, but an author of war fiction.

Via Sinistar, who should be credited for having found a lot of these posts before most people did.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

ill return to america an author

bavarian stories in some sort of rounded metaphysical order...personality death stories intersecting with poesy home memory reflections. You begin with a place and an action and let it carry in every direction till the words are vibrating on the page, dripping in thick robust delapidated barnhouses of adjectives and pronouns...no time for the subtle gray faced calculations of a PERFORMED intimacy...go...but remember what Kerouac forgot: revision is spontaneous also.

a brief coming back to america introduction, stories about soldiers, prositutes, innocent students rendered featherless by dark rivets of experience and the decadence of human pursuits in every vein...and then there's the veins...follow 'em.

Cut your wrist let it bleed onto the paper in unique soulpatterns of mindthoughts. after the coming back to america introduction theres sgt. Leclaire with his dick blown off and the house 12 working girl with her stuff blown out in the other direction and both lost darkeyes brooding on prisonfleshes of human animal bodies the bridge across being only that connection spark instant also lost as quickly. a revery of mothertalk and love looks back in the soft american night. the awol in bamberg lying to make himself into someone who can actually touch another persons lips to his heart to feel. a grandma memeory of cracked heavy crystal balls and smoke serpitine around stacks of tarot cards. the smell of the antiseptic physical therapy room filled with limbless veterans, some missing half a face, and one wearing a god bless america t-shirt...of course this was all before the war, but the war is closer here and an everlengthening shadow over my half closed eyes...but this is all in our time, here and coming back to america...

posted by Scott Thomas at 9:46 AM 3 comments

"Memeory." Yeah, his spelling is atrocious, but I'm pretty sure he meant to do that.

Dreamdeception? Or Jesterjoke? I don't know about this one. Decide for yourselves.

I think this is ambiguous because it can be argued (and no one can disprove that argument) that this was intended as a joke. I know that I've said all sorts of things on this blog that I thought were absurd enough that people would get that I was joking, but every once in a while I don't make the absurdity clear enough and people ask, "Is that true? Really?"

On the other hand: This does sort of reinforce the pattern of his blog, and maybe of his Baghdad "Diaries," of mixing three true facts with one entirely invented one and providing no guidance to a reader as to what's real and what's simply bullshit (or should I say, a "liemagination").

Here, the stuff about his travel in Germany is true, as is, I assume, the thing about having a girlfriend. But then there's the picture, which is proven conclusively to not, in fact, be his girlfriend at all, but rather a female blogger whose picture he found in the internets.

I dunno. I wish Dr. Helen were willing to provide a completely unethical and uninformed psychological profile based on some blogposts, but I'm sure she won't.

Thanks to Larwyn for that.

posted by Ace at 02:33 PM

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