Like all the best efforts, they kind of change you. They
challenge you. They almost intimidate you. But, importantly, you learn from them. Because it's an education. And you're better next time. Perhaps you're better than them. Creative practitioners are constantly leapfrogging each other. It's the name of the game, and not important, because it's all about personal progress (never compare yourself to other people!). This story in particular was
like the Dumb and Dumber of literature, like a stupid movie in the text of a
book, but serious, sad and horrifying at the same time, making it a real adult gem. (A chipped gem, it must be said.) Chuckling out loud while leafing through pages is a reserved form of humour, and
different to other laughs. It takes a lot of knack to make people do that. Or a
natural funny bone (some comics have funny material, and some have funny bones).
A book has no visual power whatsoever. All print looks the same. Black on white
blocks. Line after line. Uniform. But within it is the author’s psyche (if he
or she is any good), delivered into your brainspace, and that particular author’s
psyche may be very visual indeed. The reader may be a visual person too, and
when they both interact in this way, then a splendid meeting of minds might
just take place...
Is Ricky Windell George really writing about this?? I
thought to myself. It was kind of unbelievable. Like watching a laugh out loud
comedy with no television. Reading can very much be like watching telly, except you
choose all the locations and actors. You’re in total control of interpreting the
writer’s message. The farcicality of bold stories like Good ‘Nough To Eat
actually rub off on you. The funniest laughs are those laughs when you shouldn’t
really be laughing. Embarrassment has a lot to do with it, you know. As an
author, how far are you prepared to go? How much of yourself are you prepared
to reveal? How red must your face flush before you have to think twice about
where you’re heading? I believe there are no boundaries. On the screen, there
are. But on the page, no (not on that illimitable screen in your mind). Push
them. Break them down. But you have to know yourself first. Or maybe not. Perhaps
knowing others is enough. When you mix yourself and others you get a new
character.
The most preposterous scene ich recall ever writing was a flash piece called Spell Pinocchio (1300 words). It took place on a plane. Among other strange goings on, a
woman had kept the liposuction juice from her hospital operation and was squirting it from a water gun into the hair of other passengers, saving only enough to make pancakes for her husband.
It’s called absurdia, and it’s the future. Think of Jim
Carey and Jasper Carrot in a script written by Harry Enfield and Lenny Henry. This
is why the blog has a trick up its sleeve waiting for Mr. Ridiculous to come
out. What’s the point in living without laughter? Soes anyway, well done Ricky, gunna read you again soon. Some
things you just have to experience more than once. Like Michael Jackson’s Beat
It video, and oriental sushi with coconut yogurt mashed together on a folded pineapple pizza...no other toppings, not even cheese and tom, just pineapple...like a Hawaiian without the ham. Spell Hawaiian.
◊◊ right though aren’t I though ◊◊
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