To call it the end of reason

 is too dramatic; let’s just call it — ‘Sky doesn’t want to write essays anymore.’ This means I am announcing my abhorrence for a certain structured, cohesive, argument that is persuasive, but only to the extent that it is logical. No, that’s not for me. So you can hold it against me if and when I write one; but I really never want to again. I didn’t want to end my endless Plague Diary either, but I didn’t know what to do. So I’ve settled for this —which is something else, certainly not the same — but inspired by it somewhat. I feel that ‘reason’ is over, for me. Much the same way it was over for the Dadaists after the World War I; they saw the carnage, so many young men exterminated, and why? Has ‘reason’ led us here? We must have something else, the unreason; the ‘unart.’ But I don’t think art has anything to do with our present dilemma, or rather it has everything to do with it but in a very sly way. Art — as I knew it, is over — the dream, the fantasy, the made-up concoction, the candy floss or perhaps nightmare artificiality, we will have none of that. We demand a lecture on environmentalism, preferably delivered from a podium by someone who is perhaps grandmotherly, and reassuringly inept, but well intentioned. We demand right-mindedness. Indeed we want to be corrected and art must scold us, it’s all ‘teach’— the delight has never been so far away. So just as art has become a statement of truth,  our real life has become fiction. We consume it every day, it’s what constitutes most of our so-called lives, in the form of pornography, Netflix, Apple News, and social media. COVID-19 has taught us the digital world is the only safe place, and that it is a very appropriate replacement for reality. This is the truth, it must be, because our computers are the only place we dare to live. So consequently to write a well-reasoned essay on the subject of COVID-19 — or anything else — is no longer helpful. As I am a Covid Radical (I think shutting down our whole society is a big mistake) you will disagree with me; but most likely you will not argue. That is something people used to do, when there was ‘reason.’ You will be shocked, or most likely just laugh at me in a shocked way — ‘that’s ridiculous, you’re ridiculous, I won’t even dignify your idea with a response.’ Oh yes and: ‘What you’ve said is dangerous, do know that?’ — the requisite distrust of my actual person. Perhaps I am a child molester —certainly I am causing danger to others by having such ideas, or at least ’mentally ill’ in a very unbenign way. The argument from intimidation is the only argument we trust; ‘if he says that, he must be bonkers.’ All this is a very reasonable excuse for being unreasonable, but to speak frankly (why not?) I’ve never really been very fond of reason, and felt I was masquerading as a boring, predictable, ‘nice’ person — very unlike my real self — every time I wrote an essay. (But Shakespeare doesn’t count; I will write essays about Shakespeare, but not here, because Shakespeare is sacrosanct, don’t ask me to go on about it, that’s just the way it is.) No. The writing of ‘articles’ is a ‘hat’ I don’t want to wear. It just won’t work anymore. (Truth be told it always felt kind of ‘heterosexual’ to write an essay that made a whole lot of sense.)  All media has become underhanded, no one is reporting news or presenting arguments (or if they are no one is listening). What we have is much more eloquent: photos — or better yet videos — of children with inflamed limbs from COVID-19 (a fantasy that doesn’t exist). This speaks much more eloquently than any rational argument. So what will I put in place of an essay? Not art (that’s not what this is) instead a kind of unexpurgated, unwanted, un-asked-for, ultimately unnecessary and certainly not in any way useful regurgitation of my personality, my feelings, impressions, hopes, fears, what turns me on (God help us!).  It will quickly separate the adults from the children. It will be a kind of spilling of myself — yes orgasmic (sorry). It will be like Jack Kerouac’s endless typing on a scroll — I think it was Capote who called in typing not writing — so this may be just that. And inevitably, it will be very personal and very self-incriminating. Because it’s time for self-incrimination; writing which does not do that no longer has any value. Reasoned criticism has become character assassination, so let’s get my self-immolation out of the way. I hereby assassinate myself, I am an untrustworthy narrator, I am not a ‘good’ person, I have endless faults, I am narcissistic and insensitive, I love very unwisely and not very well. There is no reason to admire me (but I’m sure you’ve figured that out) best to be suspicious, I have my own motives, and could be — in fact am — trying to put one over on you. I think this is how we should approach every piece of writing, and especially anything that purports to be truth or dispassionate observation. This writing is not the truth, it is simply my truth (unless I’m lying, or even when I am). I was sitting in Union Station yesterday looking at the tiles on the columns. This was after having discovered that the humungous men’s bathroom (there must be 20 toilets in there —counting the urinals) is only — by order of the Covid Police — to have 2 people occupy it at a time. Anyway, so I was idly staring at the tiles, thinking about this, and the ceramic tiles reminded me of something else very tedious — the time my father invited my sister and I over to his house to meet his second wife. She was much younger than he was, and more beautiful, and my father had decided that in order for us to have something to do and mitigate the awkwardness, we would all sit around together and glue ceramic tiles to his new coffee table. I needn’t tell you, it didn’t work. Whenever I see ceramic tiles I think of that evening of terrifying, fraught dullness. So now I am in Montreal and the night is endless and mysterious, and it’s not at all like Ontario. There are no ceramic tiles anywhere to be seen — except those that someone has either thrown at the wall in a rage, or vomited there, and all I can hope for is that the possibilities here are endless.