Caitlín R. Kiernan: Thing

“All I have to do is make you see this. This one particular thing here. That's all. And sometimes it's impossible. Sometimes, I know the best odds I can hope for are a thousand to one.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan

(19 January 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005
Context: All I have to do is make you see this. This one particular thing here. That's all. And sometimes it's impossible. Sometimes, I know the best odds I can hope for are a thousand to one. You'll see what you see, what your life has conditioned you to see upon encountering that combination of words, not what I want or need you to see. Fiction writing is like making films for the blind.

Hope

“Each man and woman defines the world about them, creating a set of those things which they consider "normal" and "good" and "evil" and "sympathetic" and "likable," and these are damned indomitable walls. They are high and thick, and it is the task of the writer to penetrate or scale them.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan

(12 August 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005
Context: Sometimes, I think that the most alien thing to mankind is mankind itself. The real aliens live next door or across the border or somewhere overseas. Each man and woman defines the world about them, creating a set of those things which they consider "normal" and "good" and "evil" and "sympathetic" and "likable," and these are damned indomitable walls. They are high and thick, and it is the task of the writer to penetrate or scale them. To break in. To shatter preconceptions. To force people to rethink cherished opinions and prejudices.

World , Evil

“I'm not kidding, and I'm not being hyperbolic — sometimes I hate this thing I do more than I could ever say.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan

(20 December 2004)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2004
Context: I'm not kidding, and I'm not being hyperbolic — sometimes I hate this thing I do more than I could ever say. Sometimes, it seems that I spend my days dragging people whose only crime is that I am their creator through the filth and pain and degradation of my own despicable imagination. Where is the good in this? Where is the resolution? Where is the sense of it? If I had even a scintilla of belief in a "higher" intelligence of any sort, days like yesterday (and, by extension, today) would, on the one hand, give me some degree of sympathy for the idiot dieties unable to craft a better universe, and, on the other hand, it makes me grateful I have no such beliefs, because the anger I would have for that "higher" whatever would be inexpressible. And I cannot imagine that there are actually people out there — self-professed "horror" writers — who are trying to elicit these emotions in others, who are purposefully driving their characters on through all the futile, dead-end nightmares that might be devised. I would not do this. I swear I would not do this, if I could find other words in me.

Hate

“I could go the rest of my life and never again hear anyone whine about someone else being "emo," and it would be a Very Good Thing.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan

Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2010
Context: I'm wondering how the new crop of teens and twentysomethings became so afraid of emotion and the expression thereof.* Did their parents teach them? Did they learn it somewhere else? Is this a spontaneous cultural phenomenon? Are they afraid of appearing weak? Is this capitalism streamlining the human psyche to be more useful by eliminating anything that might hamper productivity? Is it a sort of conformism? I don't know, but I could go the rest of my life and never again hear anyone whine about someone else being "emo," and it would be a Very Good Thing.

Life

“I want a T-shirt that says, "Art is Emo." We live in an age where people are more apt to believe a thing if they read it on a T-shirt.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan

"Would you like to see a little of it?" said the Mock Turtle. (3 April 2010)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2010
Context: Could anything be more inimical to art than a fear of emotion, or a fear of "excessive" emotion, or a reluctance to express emotion around others? No, of course not. Art can even best the weights of utter fucking ignorance and totalitarian repression, but it cannot survive emotional constipation.
I want a T-shirt that says, "Art is Emo." We live in an age where people are more apt to believe a thing if they read it on a T-shirt.

People , Age , Art , Reading

“I'm wondering how the new crop of teens and twentysomethings became so afraid of emotion and the expression thereof.* Did their parents teach them? Did they learn it somewhere else? Is this a spontaneous cultural phenomenon? Are they afraid of appearing weak? Is this capitalism streamlining the human psyche to be more useful by eliminating anything that might hamper productivity? Is it a sort of conformism? I don't know, but I could go the rest of my life and never again hear anyone whine about someone else being "emo," and it would be a Very Good Thing.
*”

Caitlín R. Kiernan

"Would you like to see a little of it?" said the Mock Turtle. (3 April 2010) http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/639337.html
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2010

Life , Parent , Learning , Appearance

“I pondered exactly how future biographers would go about writing the biographies of authors without letters. It's not like email and "chat" and whatnot will fill the void. Online journals help a little, but they are not, generally, the truly honest sorts of things that letters were, and only a few authors keep them. I tried for years to keep up letter writing, but was defeated in the end by too many unreliable correspondents.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan

27 June 2007
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2007

Future , Help

“And speaking of Massachusetts, I just heard on CNN that the first human cloning has been successfully performed there. I'm not inherently opposed to the idea of cloning humans (or anything else), but I have to question the need for any technology that produces more of us. Making babies is about the only thing for which our species seems to display a more or less universal talent. We hardly need any help.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan

26 November 2001
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2001

Idea , Question , Universe , Help