fest

went to the kilkenny arts festival recently. saw biographical film on the irish writer john mcgahern and several adaptations of his short stories. great day. one thing he said in the film was that he found it frustrating that you never truly learn to write. you never arrive at mastery. every piece is different and presents new elements of the language to explore. on the one hand, i wonder if one can't actually get a place of having learned--knowing rhetoric, the history of linguistics, an OED laden vocab, all gram (rather than glam). But then, language is always new, always changing. throwing light and colors. It is alive, which is why you can't finally know it. like any creature, it's never the it it is for very long.