Spaniard, A Sulky Teen Going Through Stuff, is 14: AMA

When I last blogged, it was Valentine's Day. Corona was everywhere else, soon there would be riots in Delhi and the Trump-Modi tamasha during which, very probably, a ton of corona virus cases gathered and spread along with other rot.

This blog has not recorded witnessing anything of note for months now. This blog is a sulky teen, navel gazing for all its worth, and wondering why nobody loves or understands it. If there was a convenient, not very heavy stone lying on the road, no doubt it would kick it moodily and - provided the clothes were not made for females - stick its hands in its pockets, while all around leaves agitated grey, empty streets.

The streets were empty for six weeks. Now they're not. I miss the empty streets, not so much the empty shelves, and am neurotically content to stay at home like this....right until the moment I remember this poem: 

II

Let's say we're seriously ill, need surgery—
which is to say we might not get up
   from the white table.
Even though it's impossible not to feel sad
   about going a little too soon,
we'll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we'll look out the window to see if it's raining,
or still wait anxiously
  for the latest newscast. . . 
Let's say we're at the front—
 for something worth fighting for, say.
There, in the first offensive, on that very day,
 we might fall on our face, dead.
We'll know this with a curious anger,
        but we'll still worry ourselves to death
        about the outcome of the war, which could last years.
Let's say we're in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
                        before the iron doors will open.
We'll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind—
                                I  mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
        we must live as if we will never die.

*

Anyway. I'm all out of ideas, or rather I (sometimes) have them but can't be bothered to roll them out evenly with words and bake or season them. They're just lumps in my head and there they will remain.

(Aside: why blogger is giving me different fonts with each paragraph I don't understand. Behave!)

So I outsourced the search for a subject for this anniversary post to twitter. 

AMA, I said, and I had two questions in response:

Amba asked: 

If you had to pick one only, which would you consider a better representation of your bare soul before God and the devil - your Twitter archive or your blog archive?

I had a lucid answer to this forming the minute she asked me, but now it's all gone. However:

The short answer is, I can't pick just one; I won't pick just one! They're two different aspects of my (what is now known as) public facing life, and I think both are valuable. 

Also, if I have to have two entities judging me, I reserve the right to present two different (immortal) records of my self.

As I said to Amba in another context, greed is the true mark of this time of pandemic, and what's the use is arriving for judgement with a curated list of achievements? Bring everything, all the things, I say, and let god and the devil so some work for a change, sorting and sifting.

Ranjani asked: 

So...if civilization were ending and you had to pick ONE film to save what would it be?

You guys...so thoroughly living with a scarcity mindset! Why only one film? Why a film? What kind of a world are we looking at that can accommodate the paraphernalia of film viewing but can only allow a single film to survive? 

I'm so literal sometimes, I want to slap myself.

To be honest, I doubt I'd save a single film. Visual memory is persistent, like vision, and what you've already seen, you'll remember some of. For those who remember what films were, their memories will supply a dream-like memory of cinema. For those future generations that will no longer know what films were, why terrify them afresh when there will be horrors enough? 

Nah. They'll have Tik Tok, ya. Bite-sized cinema, perfect for when you have ten seconds to spare before fighting the next disaster.

*

That's all I have for you. 

Spaniard is 14. You can still AMA in the comments.