Diva 23

So she is once more in the library, reluctantly typing in the same phrase she starts all her writing with, a statement illustrating her place in the here and now, I am sitting in the maclab, the richmond library, the vcc library, the ecu library, something of that kind, she ponders if any of the greats of literature would start their daily allotment of spewed words like that, mainly because they tend to sit in the same place day-in, day-out, for a whole writing life. Or maybe that is just one of those stereotypes, just like the phrase “greats of literature”, what does that even mean? Any random scribbling on paper is literature, a list, a shopping list, a groceryshopping list, any amassment of scribbles that resemble letters, in any language, in any script, all through history of mankind. Numbers will do, too. If that is the standard, anyone can write. Anyone should write. She of course has a vested interest in defining literature like that, she has no clue where her writing stands in regards to some esoteric standard of greatness or nongreatness. It is in her best interest to spit on the preposterous view that one can critique writing or for that matter any kind of artform. Isn’t it enough that someone is willing to take a stab at writing, at producing something new, at spinning form into solid mass. ( she kind of stole that phrase from another student, it sounded so very accurate and precise and kind of illustrates the pushing down of an idea into something tactile, something concrete). The oceanfactory hovers over the library, the light is on, outside is greyness, utter, greyness, eternal greyness. Seems today is the day for grandiose phrases like eternity, literature and then again we stumble upon the problem of defining what constitutes a grandiose gesture, what doesn’t. All she knows is that she is sitting here hammering at some obscure keyboard in some obscure library in some obscure place. Trying to articulate what is basically inarticulateable. Ha, that sounded good.

45

The page is still begging for some more input, the words flow away, pause ever so slightly, then march rhythmically in place again. It is the day near the equinox, beginning of spring nears. Norooz. She will be all by herself, that cannot be good. Like all those suicidal people who are by themselves on christmas eve. not good, not good. But, then again, there is not time for courting darkness, no time for slithering on the road via depression, words have to be formed to be hammered into a monitor, some obscure gradproject has to be constructed. To get some obscure piece of paper, that is totally useless, totally, totally. Totally. Bold statements are fun, absolutes versus vagueness, a play with the rhythm of words, same can be done in clay, in steel, in glass, in graphite. In music. - So the day slowly slithers forward, it is somewhere around ten, outside the same whiteness as yesterday with the same stark treeshape, black withering against the sky. The oceanfactory just sits there, people slowly gather in the library. Someone reads the newspaper, puts it back now. That will be her come next fall, she will not be an artstudent anymore, will be a former artstudent. An out of work student, out of class student. Someone in student services is of the opinion that studying is terminal, it is not, there are always more books to be read, more words to be written. Whoever made up their mind to measure knowledge in bite-sized bits, be they kindergarden certificates, be they phds. You cannot quantify that. She has to look more deeply into that: pedagogical theory, comparative pedagogy. That kind of stuff. How we learn, what we learn. It is kind of redundant though, mere discussion of booooringness, utterly uninteresting stuff. The person next to her clicks on the mouse, on the keyboard, something roars in the back, ah, the symphony of the library. The computer hums. The computer hums. And this page is

46

finally done. Done, done, D O n E………………… ….

47

..

…