Do you recognize the quote? Poor Admiral Stockdale. But what a thought-provoking quote. I think, once we had that answer, we’d know just about everything worth knowing.
I am Paul Bedard, and I am here right now to write a blog post. I’ll tell you why I chose my title. It’s a quote from Nicholas Boileau. Like me, he’s French. Unlike me, he’s dead. Like me, he was a critic. Unlike me, he got paid for it. Presumably. The quote, which I have always loved, is “Anyone can be original, and absurd.”
I think what he must have meant by it, is that we prize originality in art, but maybe we prize it overmuch. After all, have you ever seen a TV show that “broke all the rules,” and had the spontaneous thought – oh! now I finally know why they made those rules!
Let me explain it a little more carefully. If you set out to write a story about a dragon, it might occur to you that everything has been said. The wings, the fire, the wisdom older than time, the iridescent scales and the defiance of gravity, not to mention the square-cube law. So, if it’s all been said and done, how can you be – – -original?
Well, it’s easy! As Nick says, anyone can do it. Just write a story about a dragon that lost his quilt and decided to travel back in time to ask Thomas Jefferson to make him a new one but slipped on a time-banana and ended up on the set of Beverly Hills 90210 just in time to talk Shannen Doherty out of *****ing her way off the show.
I guarantee you, you’ve succeeded. Your dragon story is absolutely original. No one has ever written that story. But – and here is the second half – it’s absurd.
Now, something that just anyone can do, doesn’t seem worth doing. Or…does it?
Here’s where I go off the rails a bit. Sorry, Boileau (pronounced “Bwa” as in “bwahaha!” and “LO” as if you’re a little angry but no one knows why. Most French is pronounced with subliminal emotions. It’s the only language that actually has a verb tense called “the passive aggressive.”) Anyway, here’s the thing – I would absolutely read that story. And demand a sequel. I enjoy the absurd.
But not Rise of Skywalker absurd. Because I don’t like my intelligence insulted.
Anyway, that’s why I chose that name. Because I wasn’t sure if anyone would want to read anything I’d ever write, and I felt more than a little pompous presuming that they might. So I asked myself, what can I offer? Well, originality, for one. But perhaps absurd originality. But that’s okay. (Unless it’s not. In which case, my humblest apologies. And farewell.)
I think it’s a perfect name. And I don’t even have to worry about living up to it, because it’s not like I quoted Mark Twain or even Shania Twain. I quoted Nicholas Boileau. Whom I guarantee you’ve never heard of.
So, I can promise you, if you read my future posts, you can be guaranteed to read things you’ve never read before. That’s about all I can guarantee. If you attempt to find any other motive in my narrative, you will be….oops! Better keep my promise and not quote Twain.