Forum / My fifteen minutes ...

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Jun 19, 05:12pm

  Not sure whether to celebrate or ponder the inevitability of the modern concept of fame, the Warhol concept of it, which seems to creep across the internet like syrup, cold syrup at that ... such that it becomes indelible and can last much longer than fifteen minutes.

  I Googled myself and found a reference to my story, "The man who killed Molly Bloom," which is posted here at Fictionaut.

  The link is: http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/likefire/a-meta-bloomsday-sampler/comment-page-1#comment-5134

  And I suppose I'll celebrate the fact that people I don't know will not only read but reference my work. This is something I did not expect. Have to think about it for a while.

  It's a good thing, though ... isn't it?

  I mean, a reference here, a reference there. Your name gradually becomes something beyond your self, a force, uncontrolled and ultimately ... separate from its source.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Jun 19, 05:16pm

  The link above goes to the comments. Here's the correct link:

  http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/likefire/a-meta-bloomsday-sampler

• 
  MaryAnne Kolton

  Jun 19, 06:43pm

  Mmmm, the very reason I'm not on facebook. There are a lot of people I used to know that I decided I no longer wanted to know and now they know where to find me. I think that might violate the terms of my witness protection program agreement. . . .Not sure how I feel about this.

• 
  Christopher Allen

  Jun 19, 08:10pm

  I don't know. I love to find these things...not that I Google myself every day. Um.

• 
  Marcus Speh

  Jun 19, 09:13pm

  chris, i also enjoy finding myself on the web since 1989.

  james, isn't this —"your name gradually becomes something beyond your self [and] ultimately separate from its source"—the story of our life with regard to information at large?

  granted, with the web at play, there are more forces, places, tools to make it happen, but it starts when we call ourselves "james" and when someone else says your name back to you, but not quite the way you'd say it and perhaps with joy because they knew another james, or with some other unrecognised feeling (because their cousin is called james and has a lisp).

  isn't this rather a function of being in the world?

  the world's larger now, of course.

  perhaps dehumanised, too.

  but we built the machines.

  who now say our names back to us, mangled.

  though it may be scarier if they don't say our name back to us.

  definitely an interesting thing, perhaps defying good|bad.

  <a href="http://kaffeinkatmandu.tumblr.com/post/6695293517/art-is-essentially-serious-and-beneficial-a-game">here's something else</a> (a quote, a reference) on the issue of meaning and art if not artist's identity.

• 
  Linda Simoni-Wastila

  Jun 20, 01:42am

  James, I think it's marvelous to find your WORK referenced elsewhere, a sign your stories are being paid attention to by individuals you do not know. One of the highest compliments, imho. Once we start placing our work on the web -- including here at fn -- and attaching our names, then I beleive we've declared ourselves public writers. Congratulations! Peace...

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Jun 20, 02:09am

  Marcus, it's a strange thing ... the comprehension of something I've not really considered before, which is that my written words have an energy, a life, a force beyond my purpose for writing them.

  I remember sitting in a bar in Hong Kong on leave from the war, sometime in 1965, listening to a very popular record at the time ... it was being played on the juke box ... Eric Burdon and The Animals, "Oh, Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood." In the haze of it all, the night club, the drinking, the realization that when my enlistment was up in 1966, I was going back to a world that wasn't going to understand me at all, that song was my anthem, my prayer.

  Even then, the idea of a regular job for wages scared the hell out of me. I wanted to be a writer, but did not understand what they really meant.

  Writing is a strange art.

  Communication ... expression is subject to more variables than the ballistics of a spent bullet. I try to be careful to remember not to parse things ... concepts ... too specifically, too carefully. I've learned that the perspective, the kaleidescope lens of magic is more human, more natural for an artist ... and for all artists maybe it is the only one, the nearest thing to a rule for us if we want to excel in the development of true artistry.

  Magic.

  Analysis is the antithesis of wonder. It can destroy a writer, I think.

  If there is a force to my words when they move about in the ether; if they become an entity of and distinctly of their own velocity ... maybe that's my purpose, my only function as a writer, to collect them, shape them, and launch them on their way.

  James Lloyd Davis? Who the hell is he?

  I can live with that.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Jun 20, 02:13am

  Thanks, Linda. It's wonderful, really, but strange.

• 
  Myra King

  Jun 20, 02:58am

  I agree with Linda. Well done, James.

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