JR is one of the funniest books I ever read. It's difficult to tell what's going on at first - after stumbling through 100 pages I actually restarted, and the second pass helped it stick. It represents an investment in time, but I promise it will repay that investment several times over.
He forgets one crucial writer. The one who doesn't want to write but has thoughts or experiences that demand be written! We now live in a world where the computer will write those experiences for you. You just have to dictate it. A writers new job is to create voices that computers cant. That come from the vulnerability of having a meat body. Watch: The rain hammered against the windowpane, a relentless metronome to the rhythm of his thoughts. Detective Jake Brody stared at the blank screen, the cursor blinking impatiently, mocking his writer's block. A half-empty bottle of whiskey and a stack of crumpled notes littered his desk, the remnants of another failed attempt. "Just dictate it, Brody," his partner's voice echoed in his head, the ever-present advocate for the new AI writing tool the department had adopted. "Let the damn computer do the heavy lifting." Jake scoffed, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "It's not the same, Sam. The machine can't capture the grime, the stench of desperation that clings to every fiber of this city. It can't feel the weight of a mother's tears when she identifies her child's body, or the hollow echo of a gunshot in an empty alley." He took a long swig, the burn a familiar comfort. The computer could string together words, sure, but it couldn't bleed onto the page the way he did. It couldn't translate the visceral reality of his job into something that made sense of the chaos, that gave a voice to the voiceless. With a sigh, Jake pushed away from his desk, the old wooden chair groaning in protest. He walked to the window, the city lights a shimmering tapestry against the rain-streaked glass. A neon sign flickered in the distance, a beacon in the darkness: "The Last Word - Where Stories Come to Life." A wry smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Maybe it was time to let go of the old ways, to embrace the tools of this new age. But one thing was certain: the story, the heart of the matter, that would always be his.
In conclusion, no matter what field or career, I think it is better to acknowledge the downsides of each career so people won't get disappoint and later abandoned their journey.
I get depressed if I don’t write so I sort of have to these days. It will never really be a fun and flashy thing to do, and especially these days great pieces will not be making you very much money.
this might be a silly request, but since I'm not a native English speaker and sometimes he speaks too quick for me (even mumbling a bit), does anybody have the transcription of this by any chance?
English is my native language and I had a hard time understanding it too, haha. I tried to transcribe it, but Gaddis has a lot of tangential comments and unfinished thoughts. Hopefully this isn't too hard to follow: "Literary" is such a... sort of tainted word, I think, which comes to a point of why [there's] this plethora of people who want to write and why do they want to write? I think often there's a confusion--and this is not just kids in colleges but it's in writing conferences, which I've gone to three or four of--and it's less wanting to write than it is wanting terribly to be a writer. This is a fuzzy number that one has got to get through very quickly because there is a difference. I think this accounts for occasionally... Someone I know was teaching poetry somewhere and had submitted to me a poem he had read in Playgirl magazine. What he was reading that for, I don't know, but he had seen the poem and here it was, word for word, that a student had turned in as their own work. And to me what that involved was a terrible want/wish to be a writer, without very much notion of... I don't mind the loneliness of it, which has been mentioned. The drudgery can really get you down. So much of it is just sheer drudgery and that, I think, often doesn't come into consideration. People who have fantasies about wanting to be a writer... If you can give me a minute here, I'll just read you this. This is the kind of thing that comes in [my] mail: "As a writer you have the power to make people laugh, cry, hate, love, and think." That's on the outside of the envelope. Then inside... this is from the office of the director (I don't know of what): "He stopped reading, removed his glasses, dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief, and silently stared out the window. My story had touched him more deeply than he'd ever admit. At that satisfying moment, I enjoyed the writer's greatest triumph: I had made him think." I don't get the connection between thinking and looking out the window and weeping, so we're in trouble already, right? "With those simple words, the professional writer I know explained why he values his career so highly. He said, 'I'll probably never author the Great American Novel, but I do have the ability to inform, amuse, inspire, and comfort the reader, and earn good money at it.'" I think, in other words, there are an awful lot of really deleterious influences going on, and that many people get drawn in... Even if they don't get anything as ghastly as this in the mail, they still have this notion of authoring a novel, or sending someone to the window weeping (the total opposite of thought, right?). At any rate, this is why often the problem in teaching, I find, is to discourage people kindly, but also hope that they have learned something in terms of literacy.
@@oleander_rabbit Thank you for your transcription. If I may, I wanted to offer my one slight adjustment. The way I heard that final paragraph, he does not say "Even if they don't get anything as daft as this in the mail..." but rather " Even if they don't get anything as "ghastly" as this in the mail...". My mother has often said of me that I am hard of hearing so take it with some salt. Godbless
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Wanting to smoke vs wanting to be a cigarette model.
Gaddis is his white chair, so effortlessly erotic
I spend too much time fantasizing about how wonderful it would be to be a famous writer and too little time actually writing.
--
"I hate writing, I love having written." Dorothy Parker
"I love writing." - Stephen King
I don't think Gaddis would like that quote. Either you missed his point or I did...
'I don't mind the loneliness of it... The drudgery really can get you down.'
The difference between writing and wanting to be a writer is a matter of description.
Thanks for this.
Do you have access to the full recording? Is there any way you could share it or point me in the direction of it?
I've wanted to write and, would that I could, to publish it under a pseudonym.
I must read JR, it's sounds amazing, but a backbreaker at 700 pages of almost pure chaotic dialogue beyond Billy Wilder.
JR is one of the funniest books I ever read. It's difficult to tell what's going on at first - after stumbling through 100 pages I actually restarted, and the second pass helped it stick. It represents an investment in time, but I promise it will repay that investment several times over.
Just read it
I bought mine over thirty years ago and never got beyond 10 pages. I threw it away eventually.
Yes. You'll find more wisdom / wit
and understanding of Human Nature in a Ray Bradbury short story than in 700 pages of Gaddis
self indulgent waffle !
@@2msvalkyrie529Why are you here.
He forgets one crucial writer. The one who doesn't want to write but has thoughts or experiences that demand be written! We now live in a world where the computer will write those experiences for you. You just have to dictate it. A writers new job is to create voices that computers cant. That come from the vulnerability of having a meat body.
Watch:
The rain hammered against the windowpane, a relentless metronome to the rhythm of his thoughts. Detective Jake Brody stared at the blank screen, the cursor blinking impatiently, mocking his writer's block. A half-empty bottle of whiskey and a stack of crumpled notes littered his desk, the remnants of another failed attempt.
"Just dictate it, Brody," his partner's voice echoed in his head, the ever-present advocate for the new AI writing tool the department had adopted. "Let the damn computer do the heavy lifting."
Jake scoffed, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "It's not the same, Sam. The machine can't capture the grime, the stench of desperation that clings to every fiber of this city. It can't feel the weight of a mother's tears when she identifies her child's body, or the hollow echo of a gunshot in an empty alley."
He took a long swig, the burn a familiar comfort. The computer could string together words, sure, but it couldn't bleed onto the page the way he did. It couldn't translate the visceral reality of his job into something that made sense of the chaos, that gave a voice to the voiceless.
With a sigh, Jake pushed away from his desk, the old wooden chair groaning in protest. He walked to the window, the city lights a shimmering tapestry against the rain-streaked glass. A neon sign flickered in the distance, a beacon in the darkness: "The Last Word - Where Stories Come to Life."
A wry smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Maybe it was time to let go of the old ways, to embrace the tools of this new age. But one thing was certain: the story, the heart of the matter, that would always be his.
The funniest thing I heard 🤣
Garrison Keillor also made that distinction.
In conclusion, no matter what field or career, I think it is better to acknowledge the downsides of each career so people won't get disappoint and later abandoned their journey.
“Anyone who writes - for anything other than infamy or - love of female critics is a fool.” - Emily Dickinson
I get depressed if I don’t write so I sort of have to these days. It will never really be a fun and flashy thing to do, and especially these days great pieces will not be making you very much money.
this might be a silly request, but since I'm not a native English speaker and sometimes he speaks too quick for me (even mumbling a bit), does anybody have the transcription of this by any chance?
I'm seconding this.
English is my native language and I had a hard time understanding it too, haha. I tried to transcribe it, but Gaddis has a lot of tangential comments and unfinished thoughts. Hopefully this isn't too hard to follow:
"Literary" is such a... sort of tainted word, I think, which comes to a point of why [there's] this plethora of people who want to write and why do they want to write? I think often there's a confusion--and this is not just kids in colleges but it's in writing conferences, which I've gone to three or four of--and it's less wanting to write than it is wanting terribly to be a writer. This is a fuzzy number that one has got to get through very quickly because there is a difference. I think this accounts for occasionally... Someone I know was teaching poetry somewhere and had submitted to me a poem he had read in Playgirl magazine. What he was reading that for, I don't know, but he had seen the poem and here it was, word for word, that a student had turned in as their own work. And to me what that involved was a terrible want/wish to be a writer, without very much notion of... I don't mind the loneliness of it, which has been mentioned. The drudgery can really get you down. So much of it is just sheer drudgery and that, I think, often doesn't come into consideration. People who have fantasies about wanting to be a writer... If you can give me a minute here, I'll just read you this. This is the kind of thing that comes in [my] mail:
"As a writer you have the power to make people laugh, cry, hate, love, and think."
That's on the outside of the envelope. Then inside... this is from the office of the director (I don't know of what):
"He stopped reading, removed his glasses, dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief, and silently stared out the window. My story had touched him more deeply than he'd ever admit. At that satisfying moment, I enjoyed the writer's greatest triumph: I had made him think."
I don't get the connection between thinking and looking out the window and weeping, so we're in trouble already, right?
"With those simple words, the professional writer I know explained why he values his career so highly. He said, 'I'll probably never author the Great American Novel, but I do have the ability to inform, amuse, inspire, and comfort the reader, and earn good money at it.'"
I think, in other words, there are an awful lot of really deleterious influences going on, and that many people get drawn in... Even if they don't get anything as ghastly as this in the mail, they still have this notion of authoring a novel, or sending someone to the window weeping (the total opposite of thought, right?). At any rate, this is why often the problem in teaching, I find, is to discourage people kindly, but also hope that they have learned something in terms of literacy.
It has subtitles.
@@oleander_rabbit Thank you for your transcription. If I may, I wanted to offer my one slight adjustment. The way I heard that final paragraph, he does not say "Even if they don't get anything as daft as this in the mail..." but rather " Even if they don't get anything as "ghastly" as this in the mail...". My mother has often said of me that I am hard of hearing so take it with some salt. Godbless
@@brokenfingers98 I think you're right. It at least sounds like a G at the start of that word lol... I've made the edit. Thanks!
It’s like wanting to be wealthy without wanting to work.
It’s more like enjoying your work and not thinking much of wealth at all.
everyone wan be a millionaire too but they don wan choose the investments
Dr Johnson had alternative take on the failed writer . " Always writing ; never to
be read . "
Sounds like narcissism of small differences, and the glorification of the literary establishment which isn’t worth much these days.
Gaddis is worth reading but skip Agape Agape, which is just a poor version of a Thomas Bernhard jam.