DRAWING A BLANK

Today I am empty. I mean… I got nothing for you. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Bupkiss.

I don’t mean this in any grand ontological manner; all is still well on the western front. It is just that today is right busy: home inspectors, realtors, contractors, more interminable waiting, and a conference paper to write. But, since I am trying my darnedest to at least write something every day, I will share my academic thoughts with you a little, or at least share what I am thinking about.

So. I have this conference next week and I still have to finish my paper – Scribbled Notes or a Body of Writing: Memory and Writing in Christopher Nolan’s Memento. I have been pondering the materiality of writing quite a bit the last couple of years both in my studio work and in my writing, so I finally decided to do something with it, thus the conference paper – good timing Thomas. Mostly I have been thinking about how writing – as material thing – can convey so much more than words thought of as merely information, that writing – as writing – is unbelievably dense communication. As Leonard himself understands:

You kind of learn to trust your own handwriting; that becomes an important part of your life. You write yourself notes, and where you put your notes, that also becomes really important. You need a jacket that’s got like six pockets in it, particular pockets for particular things. You just kind of learn to know where things go and how the system works. And you have to be wary of other people writing stuff for you that’s not going to make sense or is going to lead you astray. I mean, I don’t know, I guess people try to take advantage of somebody with this condition. If you have a piece of information which is vital, writing on your body instead of on a piece of paper can be the answer. It’s just a permanent way of keeping a note.

I am interested in this because Leonard develops an extraordinarily complex system of writing, one suited for the conveyance of enormous subtlety, but he unfortunately seems unable to follow his own stricture. He perpetually ignores the reminders he leaves himself – to “remember Sammy Jankis” – and treats writing as merely words.

This, for all of you playing along at home – is why I have become a designer. I have virtually no formal training as a designer – studio artist, yes, designer, no – but I have almost certainly become one. Typography, perhaps my holiest of holies, my most beautiful of forms, so many ways to make marks, letters, words, language-symbols, ideograms, what-have-you. So many ways to write, such elegant possibilities…

Everything from scribbling in the dirt with a stick to the ethereal penmanship of online writing still comes together under typography’s big top. Perhaps is it both why I design and why I write. I don’t know if I so much love language as much as I love writing – not just the act of it, my acts of writing, but the very premise of it, the that we write of this species.

Even if most of what we write is utter crap, I still like that we can.

On that note, back to writing… And yes, I know, I am already writing, but I mean the other writing I have to do, even if it, too, may be crap.

And okay, so maybe I wasn't quite empty either.