Fiction: A’Merkin

I wrote a thing.

It’s obnoxious. Don’t read it.

 

 

Brain dead.

Story open. Words there; no words in head. Story stares at me. I stare at story. Story says, “wriiiiiite meeeeeeee…”!

Want write! Brain dead.

Sad.

Maybe brain work later? Brain work after moved. Moving eating brain-words, filling brain with ‘deposits’ and ‘large truck’ and ‘hodeargod I have too much shit, where did it all COME from?’ and ‘I do not want to lift that sofa’ and ‘we should get more bookshelves’ and ‘holy shit this is expensive’.

Brain work after moved.

 

Bridge-ghosts

I don’t have your email address anymore. Hoping the link finds you, and you click it, and you read all these words I’m scribbling while the thoughts are in my head. You’re in my head today, very much, and I think it’s time I let the ghost out.

I have unfinished business with you. No, don’t close the window! It’s not bad. Well, not really. Not for you. This is an apology.

I was horrible. I was broken, and not by you; grievously wounded, and not by you; deeply mourning, but not you. You were just… there. You, with all the innocence of a small bird fluttering to the ground inside a cattery, made yourself a target by doing what was unarguably best for you, and I was dreadful to you. I had a lifetime of fury and bloody gashes stored up and hidden away and I couldn’t hide the bloodstains anymore.

I am so terribly, terribly sorry. You recognised, probably entirely instinctively, what a mess I was inside, and understood that you couldn’t afford to get tangled up in it– and there were so very many threads to get snarled in. What a tattered, patternless spider’s web my head was… I don’t blame you for severing that particular tie.

And I realise for my own part that but for my stupidity and my unpardonable behaviour, we could still be friends. I burned that bridge. I stood in the middle of it and sprayed my acid bitterness like gasoline all over it and spitefully dropped the match that sent it uncontrollably blazing under my feet, and God help me, I welcomed the burn on my skin. The anger propped me up while I mourned… and again– I wasn’t mourning you.

You bore the punishment others earned.

I can only apologise, and this I do, here and now in the open, where anyone can see it, in the hopes that one of the anyones who do will be you. You deserved none of the vitriol I gave you. If I could take it back, I would. I spent a while not thinking about it all, because doing so hurt, and I wouldn’t look at why… but the why of it is simply that I’m ashamed of myself. I was dreadful to you. I am so incredibly sorry.

I’ve said hello a few times in the intervening years. Waved in passing, as it were, but nothing more than that, not really, because this has been in the way, the need for these words. I’ve kept tabs, a little bit, although it’s been difficult: you were always so private, and I’m closed out, now, so what I get are glimpses here and there, allowed me by mutual friends and acquaintances and what I can glean from the occasional writings I stumble upon. I hope you’re doing well. I hope you’re in a good place. I hope happiness for you, because I loved you once, and because I think of you fondly still. My regrets are twofold: that I behaved so terribly, and that the bridge is burned.

I wish sometimes I could build another, of different structure and design, one meant for longer friendship, rather than to close the gap I was trying then to define or, really, ignore. I don’t know if I can… but the wish is there.

 

Shortpost, for my brain is goo.

I confess.

I’m addicted to Crack(ed).

It’s terribly fascinating, the stuff you find there. Today, I discovered the concept of unwrapping parties: Victorian well-to-do purchased mummies from the roaring traded in Egyptian relics, and used the unwrapping of the dead as a party theme.

“‘Lord Londesborough at Home: A Mummy from Thebes to be unrolled at half-past Two”, read an invitational card. It was apparently quite the social phenomenon.

Fascinating. Morbid. God, how Victorian.

Of course, now there’s a story blossoming silently in the dark. Seeded, rooted, growing. Even the style of it, immediately apparent. Two hundred twenty-eight words begun, more to follow.

Of course, I make the decision to aim for the novel and not the stories, and a thousand-thousand blades of fictional grass sprout up in my head.

Of course, I’ll write them.

Of course, I’m mad.

Of course. Good night. :)

 

Thoughts for today

In going through my photographs and scribblings and story-bound dribblings, I’ve picked up on a pattern I hadn’t been aware of, but that has given me something to chew on. I haven’t had much time to mull it, so these are nothing more than incomplete thoughts and observations, jotted down here for future reference, or perhaps as a placeholder I can come back to for further chewing.

I suppose that makes this cud. Ah, well. Sorry about the spit.

I am fascinated by doors. Doors, windows, apertures of all kinds; the line of demarcation between Here and There. Gates, entryways. Portals. The slender in-betweens that define the edges and boundaries. I get the same rush from standing in a doorway as I do from standing at the edge of a lake or the ocean: this is in-between. This is a meeting-place, the crossroads where Here and There meet.

Oddly, I don’t get that tingly feeling from crossroads.

I know people who don’t like mirrors. In my head, mirrors and windows are the same creature, and I am compelled to think that it’s instinctive, and that perhaps it’s why so many people don’t like mirrors: they’re windows through which we cannot see the other side, and who knows what’s lurking there, watching us while we fix our hair or glide eyeliner across our lids, or shave, or merely glance? Intellectually, I know that behind the frame and glass is simply an impenetrable wall like all the rest not covered by mirrored surface, but the creature-soul in my hindbrain knows that I’m fooling myself with silly, trivial facts, that reality is something far other, far stranger.

I don’t like dolls and mannequins for the same reason. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then theirs are shuttered and dark, and all manner of unspeakable things may be going on behind them. Human shaped things without life, with eyes but without souls. They’re terrifying.

But… doors. Love ’em. Fascinated by them. I’ve photograph after photograph of doors and gateways and windows of all types. I wonder what it means, down there in the creature-brain? It’s certainly not been a conscious gravitation. The things are clearly important to somebody in my head. I wonder who it is.

 

Plagiarism: it’s not just for books.

The designer behind Hidden Eloise is claiming that Amazon.uk retailer Paperchase has copied, duplicated, and profited from her designs.

Frankly, giving the two pieces in question a brief comparison, I have to agree. It’s blatant plagiarism, and Paperchase’s response to a request to desist has been, apparently, a great big shrug and a step up in the merchandising.

What a bunch of assholes. I don’t have a .uk account with Amazon (not that I’m using my US-based one right now anyway; they pissed me off over the MacMillan books tiff) but it makes me wish I did just so I could post a screed in the reviews of each of the products in question. Still, others have got there ahead of me. I’ll take comfort in that.

 

Individual vs. society

*BEFORE YOU CLICK* The following link leads to a blog which contains images that may not be safe for workplaces or viewing by children (the blogger is a photographer whose repertoire includes artistic nudes).

I stumbled across a link to this blog article about police methods in dealing with photographers in public. It’s… confusing. I have friends in law enforcement, so I can understand the desire to be absolutely certain about a person’s intentions and motives for doing something. The attitude this particular officer describes, however, is not so much cautious as belligerent. It troubles me.

According to the officer interviewed, as far as he’s concerned, whether or not someone’s breaking the law ‘doesn’t matter’, and it similarly doesn’t matter whether or not someone’s required to show ID. My instinct is to be offended by that. The job description is ‘law enforcement’. If no law is being broken, immediate initiation of what can only be called harassment activity is not an appropriate response.

This really stood out for me: “we hope the public will take note and take comfort from this kind of activity. We want people to feel more secure.”

Having read this interview, I don’t feel more secure. I feel terrified, because it illustrates that there are law enforcement officers out there willing to obscure the law and intimidate individuals in response to little to no provocation. I understand that there is a balance between protecting the rights of individuals within a society, and protecting the society as a whole, but this seems way over the line, to me. I may be biased: I’m a photographer, and I enjoy photographing structures for the artistic merit they may hold. I’m not interested in doors and windows (an example mentioned in the conversation) unless they form an integral part of the composition, but now I’ve the worrisome thought in the back of my mind that my liberty may be in danger for doing so. I don’t like to think that my name and address may show up in a police file because the light was just right behind an abandoned warehouse while I was out for a walk one Saturday afternoon.

I know there are officers and people related to the field who read my blog- please weigh in and give me your thoughts? I genuinely want to understand the issue, all sides of it, and if understanding gives me reassurance, so much the better.

 

It’s not a new year, but new things are here.

So let’s see: in the several months since I scribbled here, I lost my son to my ex in a bitter custody battle, resolved to give the ex’s aunt the dressing-down she so richly deserves next time I come across her, moved into a tiny apartment to save money, gave up two adored pets because of this, and met JVM.

One of those is not like the others, and I hope it marks an upswing.

He’s #3 to insist on a draft of a novel sliding across his desk, whether or not he or the others were sincere about it (it’s not their job, after all, to prod my ambition). Writing… I might have to actually, seriously look at doing this. I’ve been talking about it for long enough. I’ve been dabbling (and drabbling…) for most of my life. I should think that’s enough practice, thank you so very much.

And my so-far-perpetual hesitancy makes me wonder. Why don’t I write? Why don’t I finish the things I begin? At risk of sounding unforgivably immodest, I’m damn good, at least as far as I’ve let it take me. I know what a good story is. I know how to tell it. I know what good characters are, and I know how to make them. I know how to let them speak through me. I know how to make place immediate and visceral. I know, almost instinctively, how to tease into doing my bidding the magic of words written down. It’s a largely unshaped talent, but it’s there. I could use it if I wanted to; I could stumble across the barriers and potholes that new-fledged scribbly-types must encounter in order to acquire the scars and bruises that are a writer’s (w)rite of passage. Rejections; dead ends; bad characterisations; plots that won’t resolve. Terrible grammar. Editors (gawd bless ’em).

I could do it.

So… why the fuck don’t I write?

…I think I’m afraid.

 

Warning: shameless fangirling ahead.

Tad Williams is a man of a brilliance I can’t touch. I can write passingly well, I confess that much, but he creates, and does it on a level that is, I think, rare. Lots of people write, many of those tell excellent stories. Tad brings his people and his worlds to breathing life. I don’t know how he does it. There’s magic to it, in an older and more terrible sense of the word than legerdemain and Disney. Alchemy- he turns the lead of letter, syllable and phrase into a golden reality, one accessible only by turning pages and hoping he gives you more once you’ve done so.

It’s that quality that has me excited and more than a little anxious about one of his upcoming projects. He is collaborating with Paul Storey on a novel, written by Tad (er, obviously), illustrated with paintings by Paul, based on Wagner’s Ring cycle. Tad and Paul have me a bit frightened over it. It holds much promise, and more than a little threat, because I know already what Tad can do. Coupling his talent with what Paul is offering… well.

The paintings make me uncomfortable. Paul is a fantastic artist, with the ability to evoke more than any typical “ooh isn’t that a lovely picture” feelings with his work. Tad has been posting on his website sneak peeks of the Ring-based paintings, and I’ve been keeping tabs on them, and trying to articulate what it is they do to me. I’m not entirely sure I’ve managed to do so, but then again, I suspect it may never get clearer than this.

They’re disturbing. I mean that they disturb the equilibrium and give me pause with a little shiver of discomfort. I can’t say it’s a bad thing, but it is a more than a bit off-putting. Think of dropping a stone in a pond: everything moves and shifts and looks different for a minute. The sky’s reflection is broken and scattered, and for a moment you can sort of see what’s lurking under the surface, whether you want to or not. The paintings do this to me. They are very dreamlike in their composition: forms and figures are distorted, stretched-seeming, with muted, muddled colours that here and there are marked with splashes of something more vivid and arresting. His subjects’ expressions are withdrawn, resigned, caught in the story, I suspect, and aware of it. There are subtle references everywhere to things I think I ought to recognise but can’t quite grasp: the linked limbs, for example, especially in Rhine Maidens (there is a symmetry to their linked arms that suggests something to my hindbrain that I cannot catch hold of); the wheel formed by the stretched bodies in The Voyage of Siegfried. I can touch the edges of these things, but I can’t quite grasp them, not awake. The paintings touch something that stays asleep and dreaming once I wake up, and that part of me, I think, recognises the undercurrents and swims in them, whereas the rest of me is floundering on the surface. Is there a significance to the single edged cuff in The Bride? I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to find out– but then again, I desperately want to know.

These paintings are haunting me.

Just like Tad’s characters.

The two of them… they’ve got me worried. And very, very thrilled.