Lines.

Creation is an act of God.

I’m going to groan now.

I thought you were paying attention?

Not when you talk like that.

It’s how I see it.

I don’t disbelieve you.

You’re mocking me.

Yes.

I’ll stop.

You want me to stop?

Let’s hear it.

Try and keep your groans to a minimum, will you?

No promises.

I hate you so much sometimes.

Thank you.

Okay, so it goes: when God created us, he made us in his image—

If you believe in that.

Believing doesn’t matter. It’s the myth. The idea. Truth is pointless. In Western society, we’re taught that that’s how God made us.

He looked inside himself and said, “There needs to be more of me.”

I really hope he did say that.

Me too.

At any rate, that’s—mythologically speaking—that is the first time we hear about creation. That’s the first moment. It takes place before our parents explain our creation. It’s the big moment.

The result of this is that when we—as a species, whatever—go to create, we look within ourselves.

You’re so serious sounding with this.

You wanted to hear it, didn’t you? It’s my theory. You asked.

I thought you would shrug it off.

I’ve been giving it thought since you asked.

The other night, when I sat down to write, I examined everything in front of me. Where it came from, why I was attracted to it, everything. It has always been this subconscious thing, but when I started to notice, that’s when I realised that what I do is take what is inside me and place it down. I sit it on the page and I tend it. I nurture it. I grow it.

I’m God making the World.

It’s what any artist—musician, writer, painter, skittles designer, whatever—it’s what they do until the work is its own thing.

But still part of them?

Well, of course. For all its independence, it’s still a representation of the artist.

That—that is the biggest load of shit I’ve heard you ever say.

You could have just disagreed.

I do. I do. It’s just—

I’m just so tired of listening to art explained as a life expression. You can only make worthwhile art if you live it first, they say. It’s ridiculous.

What about Charles Bukowski?



I didn’t say that!

The implication was there.

You can’t dismiss the idea just because of that. God is the most expressed concept in Western society.

It’s influential.

I get it, y’know? I do.

Bukowski is even a good example of what you’re saying. In life he gambled, drank, and treated women like stray dogs, and that’s how he portrayed them in his fiction and poetry.

I get it.

But Bukowski was just a type of artist, and that artist and that idea of living it to create it is—is a disease on artists minds!

So you feel strongly about this, yeah?

Are you mocking me because I mocked you?

Could be.

You’ve got to agree, though, that not all art is influenced by the life led? I mean, if you think that, you’re missing a lot of what art is about it.

You’re insane. You think the concept of an artist is completely useless when concerned with the appreciation of art.

It is.

Do I need to reference Bukowski again?

You just don’t understand me.

Sure I do. You’re just wrong.

Imagine we’re characters.

What?

Imagine we’re made up.

We don’t exist outside this moment.

All we are and all we ever will be is a pair of characters talking.

Are we some place nice?

Just imagine lines of dialogue.

That’s all?

Lines of dialogue, back and forth. No scene setting, no descriptions, nothing.

There ought to be some sort of scene description.

Just—can you just imagine this?

Sure.



Well, I’m—

Don’t say!

Imagine you’re reading this.

Imagine you’re just looking at our lines.

How am I supposed to know then?

That’s my point. How do you picture two voices if the artist hasn’t provided you with anything? We could be Chinese, Australian, Russian, Iraqi, whatever.

What’s the point?

What?

Sure, we could be anything, but what’s the point?

My point is that the audience has to flesh it out.

Creation is left to them?

Exactly.

How do they decide?

By examining themselves.

Art is not created in a vacuum. It needs an audience to exist, to flesh it out, to give life to it. In the context of our lines, it means that if a Japanese person is reading this, then we are Japanese.

That’s just the same as what I was saying earlier.

It’s not.

It is!

There is no God in this creation.

There’s only the reader, the viewer, the whatever the audience is. Only they do the creation. To go back to your example, that means that it is not God who created us, but rather that it is us, the audience, who created him.

You’re such an atheist.

Why can’t you take this seriously?

‘Cause you’re an idiot. If I could leave, I would.

Look, you’ve got your theory, and I’ve got mine. Why can’t you just allow that I have a point?

It’s ridiculous.

The audience is what gives a work life.

In any single audience member, there are any numbers of sockets that can be tapped into by an artist. Pick your art, I don’t care, the principle applies to all. The artist arrives with their creation, but it’s stillborn until it comes into contact with the audience, until it finds the right socket, connects, and has life breathed into it.

But the artist has to create first.

The artist is part of the audience.

At the best, all you can say is that they are a parasite, using the lives of millions to create.

So to you, there’s no single creation point?

Exactly.

…

You see my point?

No.

Well, I’m not buying into your God creation theory either.

You’re so insufferable at times.

Thank you.

…

…

…

…

Hey.

Yeah?

Our Chinese is ready.


(There. The last Street Conversation. I'll be posting a second entry in a moment to be used as a memory/link page where I'll fill in the usual details and thank the people who must be thanked. Thanks for reading. Hopefully I'll do more.)