MY PILLOW BOOK …  

My book, “Notes From the Mothership The Naked Invisibles” (2008) is a Pillow Book!
I discovered this just today (duhh, six years after publication) while reading about Sei Shonagon and the definition to follow.
I had not yet, heard of Sei Shonagon.
Yet, I do remember a woman in Ohio telling me about the movie, ‘The Pillow Book.‘ I puchased the movie and enjoyed it.

I described ‘Notes’ as a Faulknerian stream of consciousness BECAUSE, one of my editors stated that. And because, I really had no ready pidgeonholing 'label’ for what I wrote.
I still do not. I just knew at the time … that I had to get ‘it’ out. Comparable to pushing out a past due baby … ready or not.

I deeply appreciate the definition below as it mentions, “haphazard brilliance” which in part describes me … without the haphazard part!

Sei Shōnagon

“A PILLOW BOOK is an open-ended and spontaneous collection of fragments, and as such may include lists, observations, poems, short personal essays and diary entries. A precursor of the genre zuihitsu (random jottings – the more literal meaning to proceed, or follow, with a brush), this literary form made its appearance under the title Makura no Sōshi, or Notes of the Pillow, one thousand years ago.

This is the name that Sei Shōnagon gave to the most famous example of such literary undertakings. Notes of the Pillow – or The Pillow Book, as it is more commonly rendered –

One day Lord Korechika, the Minister of the Centre, brought the Empress a bundle of notebooks. “What shall we do with them?” Her Majesty asked me. “The Emperor has already made arrangements for copying the Records of the Historian.”
“Let me make them into a pillow,” I said.
“Very well,” said Her Majesty. “You shall have them.”

And now, Mr. Spears:

“The Pillow Book is remarkable as an instance of haphazard brilliance.
It discloses extraordinary literary talent and power of observation in the service of presumed ephemera.

The Pillow Book is a genre which accommodates the full range of the writing spectrum, from idle jotting to highly disciplined poetic composition. It is the character of the writer’s manner of perceiving, the stamp of the personality, and the idiosyncrasy established by certain likes and dislikes, the fingerprints of the individual mind upon everything it touches, which lend the pillow book a final, unplanned unity. To read a pillow book is to apprehend the multifarious world as it is drawn into the floodlight of a singular human consciousness.”

A heartfelt thanks to the evocative, literary, Sei Shōnagon, who from the reach of 994, provides this 21st Century grrl, a focus, a form, validation of my intimate observations, and the power of … me.

Thanks, Wayne Spears for his piece.

Your inspirations both … made my day!

post here