I really can’t think of an answer to this that isn’t suspect, or at least a bit sentimental and nostalgic (and so fantasy). Maybe, maybe, some of the best parties are as good in reality as fantasy.
Sex?
Mike, do you really think so? I note the question mark. I guess it depends.
Yes, totally, I think you’re right that it depends. My initial answer would be sex, without a question mark.
“Fantasy,” just like “imagination,” are words that enable people to imagine they can distinguish between “reality” and what we think about it. I don’t think that you can pull the two apart, really, in any kind of useful way, unless maybe a person is schizophrenic (I’m not using that term derisively at all).
Maybe it’s a nostalgic approach, but one reason to write and work with language (the ultimate fantasy, word=thing, of course), is that it can, at times, fuse the two completely or, maybe more accurately, smash that false notion that they’re separate.
I think you’re saying the same essentially, when you say that decoration=form. Maybe the “fantasy” vs “reality” notion has more to do with timing, than expectation. If that makes any sense.
ummm….what I really meant was that the ultimate fantasy is that word=representation of thing. Word does equal thing. I definitely do believe that.
If word=thing and/or act, then there is no such thing as imagination or fantasy.
“it can, at times, fuse the two completely or, maybe more accurately, smash that false notion that they’re separate”
Yes, Lynn, so right. It was silly of me not to extrapolate that.
Even so, maybe my question should have been, “<>generally<> better in fantasy.”
Gary and I were talking this morning about whether or not poetry is better in fantasy. There are two ways to think about this.
If we are talking about “poetry” as an abstract entity, then who knows, because what does that mean?
if we are talking about the poetry that flits through one’s head and then disappears or that one notices but does not write down over the course of an otherwise banal day, then maybe it is, in a way, better in fantasy, because it only exists there.
Sometimes, when I am not too exhausted, which I usually am, I like to do the thing, usually when trying to fall asleep, of verbalizing a stream of internal language, sometimes very imagistic (and thus fantastic). I’m not sure whether it’s “better” than something I might more consciously construct as an object of verbal art, but the experience of doing it is sort of intoxicating, maybe because it is so close to the immediacy of the fantasy from which it springs.
Ah, I thought of something.
CORRESPONDENCE and CONVERSATION
are generally not better in fantasy
even if you are really imaginative.
The obvious question is, what does better mean to you, in the conversation/correspondence contexts? It's harder to understand what that means than the travel/food/sex context, for sure.
It might be an interesting experiment, if saying things out loud didn't wake you up, to ask Gary to write down those between awake & asleep verbalizations. Trippy.
Again, Lynn, of course it depends on the correspondence and the conversation. But the fact is that, although I can hold fantasy dialogues with my fantasies of a person in my head, their part of the dialogue is usually in some sense delimited by, I don't know, my set conceptions of their personality, experience, way of expressing, etc. In actuality, people are much more unpredictable and intricate than our fantasies of them are, and that is what makes conversations & correspondence better “in reality.”
And that’s why I don’t understand why anyone would have a blog without a comments section.
Dreaming is way way better in reality than it is in fantasy. Just try to convey a dream in words or in images and you’ll see. Lynn?
I’ve also been unsuccessful in every attempt to communicate or to summon up in my imagination what it feels like to conduct a long term analysis.
I really don’t think that sex, generally, is better in fantasy than in reality. As Lynn suggested, I think–the fantasy of sex can feed the actual sex, but if actual sex isn’t happening…then, well, it’s not happening, and your alone thinking about it.
Yeah, Lorraine, you’re right.
Essentially, sex is really a kind of correspondence or conversation, isn’t it.
And since everything is imbued with fantasy, I’m beginning to see my question as naive and stupid.
No, not at all naive and stupid, interesting and provocative!
By the way, the other thing that is better in reality than in fantasy is sleep!
No, Nada, I don't think it was a stupid question at all. It was posed simply & it opened up ideas — the best kind of question.
Otohime 
I really can’t think of an answer to this that isn’t suspect, or at least a bit sentimental and nostalgic (and so fantasy). Maybe, maybe, some of the best parties are as good in reality as fantasy.
Sex?
Mike, do you really think so? I note the question mark. I guess it depends.
Yes, totally, I think you’re right that it depends. My initial answer would be sex, without a question mark.
“Fantasy,” just like “imagination,” are words that enable people to imagine they can distinguish between “reality” and what we think about it. I don’t think that you can pull the two apart, really, in any kind of useful way, unless maybe a person is schizophrenic (I’m not using that term derisively at all).
Maybe it’s a nostalgic approach, but one reason to write and work with language (the ultimate fantasy, word=thing, of course), is that it can, at times, fuse the two completely or, maybe more accurately, smash that false notion that they’re separate.
I think you’re saying the same essentially, when you say that decoration=form. Maybe the “fantasy” vs “reality” notion has more to do with timing, than expectation. If that makes any sense.
ummm….what I really meant was that the ultimate fantasy is that word=representation of thing. Word does equal thing. I definitely do believe that.
If word=thing and/or act, then there is no such thing as imagination or fantasy.
“it can, at times, fuse the two completely or, maybe more accurately, smash that false notion that they’re separate”
Yes, Lynn, so right. It was silly of me not to extrapolate that.
Even so, maybe my question should have been, “<>generally<> better in fantasy.”
Gary and I were talking this morning about whether or not poetry is better in fantasy. There are two ways to think about this.
If we are talking about “poetry” as an abstract entity, then who knows, because what does that mean?
if we are talking about the poetry that flits through one’s head and then disappears or that one notices but does not write down over the course of an otherwise banal day, then maybe it is, in a way, better in fantasy, because it only exists there.
Sometimes, when I am not too exhausted, which I usually am, I like to do the thing, usually when trying to fall asleep, of verbalizing a stream of internal language, sometimes very imagistic (and thus fantastic). I’m not sure whether it’s “better” than something I might more consciously construct as an object of verbal art, but the experience of doing it is sort of intoxicating, maybe because it is so close to the immediacy of the fantasy from which it springs.
Ah, I thought of something.
CORRESPONDENCE
and
CONVERSATION
are generally not better
in fantasy
even if you are really imaginative.
The obvious question is, what does better mean to you, in the conversation/correspondence contexts? It's harder to understand what that means than the travel/food/sex context, for sure.
It might be an interesting experiment, if saying things out loud didn't wake you up, to ask Gary to write down those between awake & asleep verbalizations. Trippy.
Again, Lynn, of course it depends on the correspondence and the conversation. But the fact is that, although I can hold fantasy dialogues with my fantasies of a person in my head, their part of the dialogue is usually in some sense delimited by, I don't know, my set conceptions of their personality, experience, way of expressing, etc. In actuality, people are much more unpredictable and intricate than our fantasies of them are, and that is what makes conversations & correspondence better “in reality.”
And that’s why I don’t understand why anyone would have a blog without a comments section.
Dreaming is way way better in reality than it is in fantasy. Just try to convey a dream in words or in images and you’ll see. Lynn?
I’ve also been unsuccessful in every attempt to communicate or to summon up in my imagination what it feels like to conduct a long term analysis.
I really don’t think that sex, generally, is better in fantasy than in reality. As Lynn suggested, I think–the fantasy of sex can feed the actual sex, but if actual sex isn’t happening…then, well, it’s not happening, and your alone thinking about it.
Yeah, Lorraine, you’re right.
Essentially, sex is really a kind of correspondence or conversation, isn’t it.
And since everything is imbued with fantasy, I’m beginning to see my question as naive and stupid.
No, not at all naive and stupid, interesting and provocative!
By the way, the other thing that is better in reality than in fantasy is sleep!
No, Nada, I don't think it was a stupid question at all. It was posed simply & it opened up ideas — the best kind of question.
I thought it a great question, too, Nada.
Nick, oh god, yeah, sleep. I never sleep anymore.