sometimes a kiss is a thimble

we watched "peter pan" (2003) the other night. i understand the
difficulty of adapting fiction into film but i am disappointed anyway.
why do people always want to take a story that is perfectly lovely and
simple and clear and add to it? that things must be subtracted i
understand ("princess bride") but that things get added, especially
things that change (what i perceive to be) the basic mores of the story
("charlie and the chocolate factory") is something i’ll never get.

every love song on the radio is about your love. every
biography is essentially your story. every experience speaks to your
experience and every horoscope describes you perfectly. you take the
specifics of a story and smudge them away until there are nothing
left but basic values, then you take the ones that you approve and
clasp
them to yourself, wanting to see how perfectly they fit. see how this
song uses the words "i love you"; that’s exactly how you feel. she
struggled against adversity and so did you; so you’re the same. if i’ve
traveled there then i know what it’s like and you don’t have to
try to explain, and you are generous and stubborn and today will be lucky.

the thing is that the more you push and pull and shove things around
until they look like something that you understand, the less they are
something you really understand. the less they are something you can
understand, i think.

i never really liked william carlos williams, i never understood the
beauty of a red wheelbarrow and though so sweet and so cold has moved
into my heart it’s a very small space compared to a tedious argument of
insidious intent. i like a little ambiguity. and i like cover versions, i like reinterpretations, i like personal footnotes in impersonal
essays. so i’m not saying i require the thing itself or nothing; i’m
not saying my feelings don’t come with a soundtrack and a slideshow,
because they totally do. but to work there has to be a response, not
just an edit and addition and then a flat presentation.

i’m straying; i’m sorry. where was i going? what i wanted to say is
that is that i see you taking pictures, songs, words, and adapting them
to the story you want to tell me, but in a way that takes away from the
original intent without actually adding anything to what you want to
say. robin hitchcock sang you’re projecting onto me/what you’d like
yourself to see but this is even worse, a step further: you’re
projecting onto me what somebody else saw somewhere else. i am
disturbed, i am increasingly disturbed, i am disturbed to the
point where i don’t know if we are even having the same conversation
anymore. i need you to talk to me in your words, not exclusively
quotation. i need you to look at me and see me, not a jumble of
presupposition. i need you to listen to me, not to the voices i remind
you of. and i need you to hear what i say, not what you thought my
words should be.