I’ve always had difficulty writing about past process. You know, it’s happened, here it is, why revisit why, unless the whole object of inquiry is a clusterfuck of shattered intent in which case it might be appropriate, in the name of wisdom, to look deeper into the matter. I’m pretty sure this is not the case here, but I can temper my distaste with the need for a splash of context.
I started this dictionary after watching Say Anything again, and please accommodate a quick digression here. This was my fifth time watching Say Anything. I liked it less than the fourth viewing, but more than the second. I consider the film a minor classic. I did not consider it a minor classic after watching the movie the first time. All this is to say if you value the medium of film it’s wise to watch a movie repeatedly. Film is an organic creature. It grows, or withers, over space and time, and what you first loved you may come to hate, or vise versa. Besides watching a film repeatedly allows you to exit the narrative and indulge in the art.
But there’s that scene where Lloyd Dobler is in Diane Court’s bedroom and he picks up her dictionary and like every other word is highlighted because she enjoys looking up words she does not know. Although one could argue whether highlighting words in a dictionary is something Diane enjoys or something she endures because doing so could be construed as the action of an overachiever.
Is there actually enjoyment in the habit? How could there be? It’s a lot of fucking mental work. Even the seemingly simple act of reminding yourself you have a practice of looking up words in the dictionary is an effort that doesn’t strike me as particularly fun, but regardless I’m watching that scene and I think all this to myself.
After the movie was over I thought about Diane and her dictionary habit. It’s actually kinda neat, a physical reproduction of Who She Is, or considers herself to be, or aspires to be, or all of it. Who is Diane Court? She’s someone who would highlight words in a dictionary. Neat. I’d like to be that person also. How does one go about expressing an aspiration, or projecting Who They Are onto the screen.
You can think about it, but dispossessed thoughts quickly drown in the chatter of one’s mind. You can talk about it, but words die quickly when not buttressed by action and so you can do it, or think it, speak it and be it, or that’s one possible equation resulting in creation of a thing, be it Who You Are, or a hole in the ground.
I wasn’t going to look words up in the dictionary because it still felt kinda lame to me, and done. The Dictionary already exists and I’m not sure adding yellow or blue or a faded orange to the insides will make it feel more alive and engaging. So I thought, well, who’s the most gifted and expansive writer I’m aware of; David Foster Wallace.
Can’t say I’m a huge fan of his work. Never was able to finish Infinite Jest, but did read some of his magazine articles and always considered his mind the stuff of genius, along the lines of Bob Dylan, or Andy Goldsworthy, or Ken Wilber; brilliant minds that are able to re-present the world so it feels fresh and clean, like hugging laundry right outta the drier, that’s what a brilliant mind will do to you, make it warm and accessible and wanting more but still keeping it a mystery, not destroying the enigmas we encounter, reducing them to bowls of stale porridge, but enlightening them, holding a light to them so that you may see for the first time something wonderful you always knew existed but weren’t quite sure how.
Anyway, so David Foster Wallace. Read his work, come to a word I don’t know, and highlight it.