Who needs the arts? Nobody
Why doest thou giveth a fuck concerning poetry (and other such annoyances)?
Go up in flames, bitch / Haley Klassen
Author: John Loeppky
I mean, really, who needs simile after simile? Writing a simile is like being a failed writer; it’s common as mud, but it seems impressive. Same with personification. I’m convinced that I’ve heard a number of the benches in the Riddell Centre whisper in hushed tones about the absurdity of literary conventions.
It was the great Cohen himself who said, “Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” But, who (unless they need some serious help) wants to literally burn in order to achieve any form of tangible success? Not me, not me.
Don’t even get me started on clichés, and how many paintings do we need? What’s wrong with white-washed walls? Cavemen got along fine and they didn’t require paint flicked haphazardly onto canvas to feel “spiritually complete.”
Same goes for sculptures. I really don’t need thirteen bronze representations of the old guard. I think the Louvre would make one hell of an arcade, and I would love to use the Globe Theatre as my own personal hang out spot. Who needs a theatre when you can get drunk without any kind of expectations?
The only art I do like is ceramics, because I can drink liquor from a mug, or eat soup, or do something productive. I see the point in that. Everything else is just… time wasting. If you’re going to write a poem, why not write a short story? And, if you are going to write a short story, you might as well turn it into a novel. If the novel succeeds, then a movie adaptation is logical. At the end of all this, if your goal is for a movie to be made, you might as well scrap the book because no one will green light your horrendous, ideas and it would all be for naught.
Look at the fame you could achieve in say, the online community, and compare that with the fact that — even if you create a book that is fantastically brilliant — no one will want to read it until at least a hundred years after you die (and that’s if you’re lucky). People want the reality TV soaked truth, not the amazing fictional narrative. It’s not like anybody ever goes to see where a fictional character lived, or worked, or went to school. There aren’t whole industries set up to capitalize on the work of these authors and, certainly, none of this figments of the collective imagination could ever be described as somebody’s hero. They are all confined to the pages they were written on, or the canvases they were smeared on, but you are not. Go, stop reading that book that brings you so much hope, knowledge, not to mention insight, and go do something useful. Do your taxes, mow the law, just don’t pen a screenplay.
If you’re really feeling creative, write a spoken-word poem about it. People want the reality TV-soaked truth, not the amazing fictional narrative. It’s not like anybody ever goes to see where a fictional character lived, or worked, or went to school. No need for a publisher nowadays. All you need is a webcam, a lack of self-respect, a half-baked idea, and an audience.
