Knocking on my own door, but …

Dangerous to write about Narcissus, as it is pretty obvious that I am a self-aware narcissist.  But at least I splash it all out there, and don’t keep the pond to myself.  Did I mention I started a blog?

As with all myths, you can take what you like about it and make it your own.  But a cursory search, i.e. a Google search, did reveal an interesting version, in which it was not Narcissus himself who perished, unable to turn away from his own image, but his twin sister who died, leaving him disconsolate.

It has left me disconsolate, as it led me to this particularly skin crawling example of a waste of my tax dollars.  I apologize ahead of time if you like erotic modern dance that couldn’t support itself on its own ticket sales even if the whole world was male,  and, um, liked it that way:

[http://www.nfb.ca/film/narcissus, in case Xty has stepped on any sensitive toes, ed.  [It doesn’t appear to be on youtube, imagine my surprise, Xty.]]

But at least, as the caption states, it is short.  They did make some good films, but it still strikes me as a crazy enterprise.  Like the university press I worked for where we only published books that could prove they would be commercial failures, and the then President was scoffed at for suggesting making a profit off what were sneered at as ‘trade’ publications, this kind of junk we could all do without.  And I mean junk, if you take my meaning, as in don’t touch mine.

Here’s a better one:

But back to the mythical man, I like the Narcissus more who pined for his twin than the malevolent offspring of this apparently celibate nitwit.  The interesting song Mr Jones by the Counting Crows

has this great lyric,  “when I look at the television, I want to see me staring right back at me.”

That seems to sum up the world around me sometimes, and I am guilty enough of it, although I would take my fame away from a video camera that’s for darn sure.  But what is with people?

I had a most unfortunate run in with a famous Canadian author, who, unimpressed with my greeting of her at my parents’ house during my father’s wake, uttered the imperious words, “Do you know who I am?”  “Do I give a …”  can be communicated in a look, let me tell you.  And maybe he helped make you who you are, you flaming narcissist?

This same author had a most embarrassing televised moment of pathos, when she helped unveil a great new invention that was going to allow authors to do remote signings of books.  So you could watch a robot arm move a pen and know it was imitating the motions of the great one, but the great one wouldn’t need to visit or touch or breathe the same air as the great unwashed one.  It failed, of course.  Most idiots could construct such a thing, in fact the first fax machine was done using a system of flags and paint rollers in a field, if I remember correctly.

I don’t apparently [thanks brain, ed.], but Alexander Bain’s first fax machine used a stylus traveling over a metal sheet with raised printing on it [thanks Google, ed.], and that was a long time ago.  But what a dweeb … I mean the author, not the inventor.  And who would possibly want such a thing … I mean the remote signature, not the fax machine.

I do miss the heat sensitive paper rolling up, as my dad was an eager consumer of early electronics, and the discovery of spam for the fax, and the endless mysterious printouts in the night.  Now I want a 3-D printer.  Then I could make little voodoo dolls of narcissists I have known and loathed. And to give away my million dollar idea, I want a 3-D printer that prints in chocolate.  Then I could eat the little voodoo dolls.  But I digress.  Revenge is a dish best served cold, as they say, so I am going to wait out all my revenge moments and let karma do the job for me.

I find it too hard to take myself seriously to be a proper narcissist though, and the mirror is a cruel enough reminder of the march of time and outer defects.  But a true narcissist must not see those defects or laugh at him or herself.  Do they stare sternly into mirrors?  Maybe they have no reflection, like the emotional vampires they be, or see a different version than the rest of us see.  That is the other invention I have always wanted, a mirror that lets you see what people thought they looked like.  I suppose the internet is a bit like that, a controlled version of the self, a constructed cyber you, like playing Sims for real.

Oh no … I feel an urge to post a picture of myself …

when I look at the internet I want to see me staring right back at me

Oh, and have a superlative, reflective, day!