Monday 9 November 1998 – Portland

No line should be wasted, no time should be wasted, no page should be wasted, it's a good day. I saw Velvet Goldmine yesterday, and I think it was an ingenious way to present history and biography in a movie. It probably has more real history than if you did a straight bio and tried to be true to the facts, names, and places, and all that, which is, of course, impossible. Especially in a movie. So, in changing the names and making it all a fictional story, it's able to get at the truth much more effectively, I think—and avoid lawsuits!

That said, it's probably not a good time to bring this up, but I've decided to change my entire philosophy, focus, rules, locus, nexis, sexis, plexus, what-is and etc. what have you, of this project, alas with this new notebook. And I know the reader doesn't give a damn about this notebook, because if you are having the fortune or misfortune to read it, it is hopefully in a magazine format (and not furtively, without my knowledge!) all typeset with the misspellings fixed and the handwriting a bad memory. But it is a new beginning, because last night, while sitting in the bar attempting to write, finishing out my pages of the old notebook, I came to the realization that it just wasn't working anymore. I was left with nowhere to go. Rather than saying goodbye—which is one option, I made the rash decision to tell the truth. I just said that for dramatic effect—I was really telling the truth all along, but now I'm just going to stop withholding information. (This has, I want to be clear, absolutely nothing to do with Bill Clinton—and I'm sorry to even bring his name up, but it's funny to keep hearing these discussion on TV and radio about what the truth is—is it lying if you are not forthcoming with the information that you know your questioners want to hear, etc.—it seems to me it's an issue for philosophers, not Democrats and Republicans, who will no doubt make a mess of the entire thing.)

Let's begin by coming clean about a few things, and laying down the law for the new way. Not really “laying down the law,” I just like that expression, because I'll continue to change the rules as I go along because that's necessary. But just to create a new framework in which to flail around in, for myself, and also to help reorient the reader, and that's who this is all about , that is, when it's not about me.