Weerd Write

Like a sinner BLAM before BLAM the gates of heaven...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:56:26 -0500

Like a bat out of hell, I come screeching back to blogging.

Where have I been? Writing writerly writings? Wistfully wasting words wonderfully? Wishfully wrecking women?

Well, blogging is like a season for me. One day it’s over and then like a bunch of days later it starts again. Probably not healthy for my writerly muscles, but whatever.

But, anyway. What’s been the happs in my literary world since like forever ago?

Well, I tried my hands at quite a few different things. Big ones were screenwriting and playwriting.

Screenwriting went pretty “meh”, I started a few projects and they never got around to being finished, mostly because my heart wasn’t in it. But I’m glad I tried it, and I definitely got a few neat techniques from it I use now.

Playwriting was pretty cool. Was just like screenwriting for me, obviously there are some differences, but it felt more literary in terms of my finger feelings. I read some really good plays, and then wrote a few crappy ones. I wrote one that was actually pretty fun for me, titled The Initiation (see At The Drive In). It was kind of like a comedic cross between Clueless and Chula. It got selected for a student-run, one-act play festival at my school and (with almost no involvement-save the writing of the thing and brief correspondences with the director) I got to see it as a production. I sat in the audience and watched as several people I have never met brought my characters to life on the stage. It made me all warm inside (there was nail-biting too).

Guess what else?

I got two stories published.

SUCK IT H8ERS.

Pretty cool development there, seeing as publication has been a goal of mine since forever. It may be worth saying that the publications were both on the small press side of the spectrum, but hey oh well. Credits are all precious credits. Thank the spaghetti monster for Duotrope (check it out if you are an author trying to publish, best tool I have used so far).

I’m currently in the process of revision and redemption of dead/stalled stories, as well as starting the process of creation for new shorties. A bigger project looms on the borders of my imagination, but for now it exists on this plane only as a few scribbled notes here and there.

Things in Tylerland have been pretty swell. Now let’s see if I can breathe some life back into this blog.

Tasty Voices

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:29:07 -0400

I’ve been thinking about voice today, and, well, a lot of days.

I think voice is like taste, that when you read a story you can feel it on your lips and know how well you’re going to be able to wash it down, whether this will be a snack deal, a good meal, or is this going to be something that you will look back fondly on as being perfect; you’ll always go on trying new things in hopes something equates to that perfect morsel, or even hoping in the back of your head that it can surpass it (but you don’t really want that, do you? Not if you like something enough).

Some things are bland. I find certain stories that I read tasteless, how easy it is to finish and forget. That’s not good, but then again, there are plenty of manufacturers of the grey stuff that fills up rookie anthologies and rushed e-books and quarterly college publications ran by pretentious little butt plug sitting hipsters (I ain’t attacking anyone, well, maybe I am). I’m not saying I’m better than anyone (most people) but there is that lower level out there, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing, it’s just there bro. Get off my back.

Here are some (personally attempted) examples of taste, uh, voice:

Stephen King - a very well cooked home meal that makes you feel warm and fuzzy and is just fun, probably you had a good conversation over it, maybe it was just leftovers but that’s ok, no one’s home and you have a hangover anyway. Sometimes, when you look at the ingredients and sometimes arty (sometimes not) way the thing is compiled, you feel a little silly spending time with it. But, it’s just fun, it isn’t work. But, for sure, if you spent all of your time just consuming King you would get fat and lazy.

Thomas Pynchon - like some whiskey, hard hard whiskey. You consume, it’s consumable for sure, but it’s only in sips or tentative swallows. You dive into it sometimes sure, but when you do your nostrils flair and you have to sit down afterwards. Some people, they can take it straight, all the time it seems, and go on like they breathe fire. But, those people aren’t always all together there, are they? There is something up with them, they’re interesting people sure, but they’re not the first people you call to go see a movie with.

Kurt Vonnegut - he’s spicy, not to spicy, but pleasantly so. He has a kick to him, you find yourself eating sometimes very quickly and sometimes very slowly, and sometimes you have to make yourself savor the bites and chew chew chew. Long, short swallows. And, you know, sometimes after it’s over it leaves you rumbling; you don’t get over that so quickly. And sometimes, especially, it gets you at the end (HA).

I am too exhausted to do more, but you get it. That’s what I see, well, when I compare voice to taste. I don’t often like describing (or attempting, you see attempts here) to describe voice because I am not the particular orator; I am an observer and a contemplator of such observations.

My thoughts haven’t been concentrating around the voices of the professionals I admire, however, and they are not the reason I am writing about them in this here blog (or journal, you’ve noticed it’s more a journal haven’t you?). Nay, not, I have been thinking instead about my own voice.

In conversation with my best writer friend recently, in regards to editing a piece I’ve been working on, he said my voice was coming out a bit more this time around the mountain (big fucking mountain) and I was like all “Yay” because that’s a nice thing to hear. Buuuuuuuut I didn’t see it, or notice it, coming out. I’m not saying that I listen to his every word and command like he is almighty and all-knowing hal lee luh yuh (but he is pretty holy). He just knows me and my shit, which he sifts and puts up with. Someday I’ll buy him a nice rug or something.

Anyway, can I describe, know, or attempt to taste my own voice? Is that like fucking yourself? I don’t know, it feels like I should be able to pull something out of my ass. Themes, that’s different, I know what I tend to concentrate on thematically. Settings, genre tendencies, and the kind of dialogue choices I make…yeah, I know those. But voice? How do I listen to myself?

Reading my own work, analyzing? (How come his blog is filled with so many questions [to be read in that quirky little old lady voice Jim Gaffigan does in his stand up]?)

Answer is, not an answer, but it’s I don’t know. I have ideas, the kinds of grammatical patterns I fall into, some of the flatness or apathy that comes off as cold (but isn’t that anti-voice?) but other than that, it’s a big mirror that goes one way. Not my way.

So, what can I do to find out what I sound like? I entered a bit of my current baby into this quirky little application on some website somewhere

http://iwl.me/

that told me that I wrote like H.P. Lovecraft. While I don’t think this is true at all (I’m touching my throbbing erection while I say that), I can kind of see that in a silly way. It just frustrated me more.

You may be thinking, “Why did I just read all of this?” I’ll tell you why. You putting up with my angsty writerly ramblings now will pay off BIG TIME in the future. In fact, here is some advice, break off you monitor right now with this blog post frozen on it, put it in a little zip lock baggie, and hide it away in an attic or some top shelf of a closet. Wait bout twenty (god I hope not that long) years and come bring it to a book signing I’m conducting in some book store (or starbucks) and be like “Hey can you sign this blog post you wrote when you still looked good and had balls?” And I’ll be all like “Sure” and then you’ll be like, while I’m signing (it takes a little while because my body is all shaky from the years of substance abuse and I’m vibrating like a jack hammer) just trying to shoot the shit you’ll say “Hey, it’s kind of funny, how you are so like super successful now, and back then you were just a whiney little shit of a writer who didn’t even know what is own voice was like and all you did was try to get your shitty little short stories published in magazines, like paper ones, and you sucked” and I’ll look up and be all like “You know what I did this morning? I wiped my ass with Jesus’s old robe that he wore during the last supper that I bought at an auction with some money I found in my shoe and while I was doing that I did lines of coke mixed with the ashes of Kanye West and then I looked up and told my house AI that it should take a picture of me doing this and print it off just so I can hand it out to people who make fun of me at book signings and then it did and here is one, made the rest into a funny little picture which I sold at Wal-Mart that helped give me enough money to fund a small arms dealer in Eastern Europe who I’ve never even met but his name is Vlad and I sponsor him just because I felt like being a fuck”. Then you’ll just stand there and I’ll be done signing then and I’ll be like “Here, go sell this and by yourself a nice hovercraft”.

Yikes.

Caelume: Demo's and wonderful words.

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 15:15:51 -0400

Caelume: Demo's and wonderful words. :

caelume:

Hey, here is a link to our bandcamp, where you’ll find our

SPRING DEMO

http://caelumetunez.bandcamp.com/album/spring-demo

and our new flash EP:

THE TUNDRAS

http://caelumetunez.bandcamp.com/album/the-tundras

Download that and listen, tell us what you think or tell your friends what you…

A (Very Short) Thought

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 15:05:53 -0400

I imagine editing is very much like being an animal surgeon, especially if there is a kind that specializes in removing fatty tumors from dogs. On one hand, it’s unhealthy for the thing to have that much extra skin on it, so operations are necessary, but if you fuck up you could detach something vital and kill someone’s beloved pet.

On Being Troubled in the Morning

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:01:20 -0400

Whelp.

Here’s the deal, I’ve been working a lot (not really more than I usually do, but aren’t excuses such sweet things to slide across our tounges?) and I have so wisely chosen to waste a good majority of my days off sleeping in to make up for the extreme late hours I’ve been staying up to whilst being a rascal. Usually I’ve been waking up around twelve or one in the afternoon and when it’s getting to be that Noon time I can more easily disregard the chair adjoining my desk and have more nasty self assurance as I browse the internet mindlessly. Also, I don’t make coffee past noon, and what the fuck can I do without any coffee?

So, in short (skip that whole sob story paragraph and just read this line) I have been wasting most of my mornings not writing.

Editing, however, is a different story.

My latest story that I’ve been running through the merciless re-write wringer is a little diddy I’ve been working on for a few months now, and is currently kicking (for now) in it’s seventh draft. This has broken the record of draft numbers for me, and that’s only because past stories don’t invest me as much as this one. I only, two drafts back, began to feel like I knew the character, I began to imagine Peter Cole as a man and not a name, began to realize that after the story he still existed, somewhere at least, and that he probably is drinking a whole fucking lot. I see him much more clearly now (that the rain is gone [LOL]) and that’s pretty nifty. Still needs work, my good, brilliant, kind and handsome writer friend of mine is helping me edit; here’s a good tidbit: when you look at your shit and are blinded by the sheen of gold, find someone who can point out that the only thing golden about your stinking pile is the flecks of corn in it and that it still stinks.

So, everything on that front is going pretty well!

Next, new material.

I have written approximatly one keeper since finishing the first draft of my current bou, and one that could be a keeper if it was completley reworked. That’s a span of two months, one keepable story. Joycean pace doesn’t seem nifty to me, in fact it makes me feel kind of anxious, like when you keep having the same dream wherein you are going to miss your flight. I have made few attempts, mostly because I’ve been spending the time editing, but this mornings attempt in particular was depressing.

I sat down, unearthed an idea that popped into my head when I had been laying awake in bed, became re-creeped out, wrote down the outline, and began to write. Sounds promising? At least normal? Me too, I was thinking short, something only a few pages and my ETA was a couple hours. Thirty minutes later, only half a page deep (it should be said that i kept rewriting that first page in radically different ways) I closed out of Word and furrowed my forehead so much I think I broke something vital.

Why couldn’t I start (or finish) this story? I told myself it was because it wasn’t a story I would really write but that’s bullshit, I am capable of writing anything I like, and I liked the story. Could be I just wasn’t feeling it, and that I could go back to it another time. Although, I don’t think that will happen, I don’t usually go back to reanimate my failures.

But the sad thing is, this was only the third attempt to write something seriously in two months. Sure, I’ve been a productive editor in that time but a writer writes, he creates constantly (or so I would hope he does) and maybe it’s writer’s block but I think not. I think it’s because I am too involved in my drafted story that I’m feeling monogomous.

So, what to do now in my productive days off? Will I have writer’s blue balls until I can see this thing in to some sort of publication? I hope not, I hope this is a temporary setback, a sideeffect of dedication, but I have ideas. I’m going to do some research, hopefully outlineing and detailing backstory on a future work will satisfy my writerly cravings. We’ll see.

P.S. Bought this wonderful book called “Steal Like An Artist”, it’s very light and filled with pictures and quotes, basically supposed to be a creativity booster. It’s written by a semi-succesful poet/writer/artist named Austin Kleon, and you should pick it up. It will at least look interesting on your bookshelf.

So far this book is quite amazing.

Mon, 28 May 2012 17:16:53 -0400

So far this book is quite amazing.

Digging, A Ritual.

Wed, 09 May 2012 11:41:21 -0400

I have a process.

On the days I have off, the days I dedicate to writing and working on pieces (these I call my Writerly Days, I usually have only two or three a week to work with) I have a little dance I do to get my mojo up and happening and jive thriving etc.

First, I wake up, get some coffee going, and wonder about aimlessly for a little while. I try to just get the sleepiness out of my feet.

Two, urination.

Three, I sit down in my chair and get my cup of coffee and get ready.

Four, I spend about an hour or two with this folder entitled writing.

In On Writing, Stephen King’s memoir on “on the craft”, he talks about how some fledgling and misguided writers think that stories come from a “mystical vulgate”, that they are simply observed by that literary ace and plucked from nothingness to be turned into a story. This seemed obviously ridiculous and funny to me when I read it (and the seven-hundreth time I’ve read it), and I laughed in my head. Who thought that? Who thought that there was some space that is ungraspable by normal Joe writers, but that those big hunkin’ bestsellers knew about and accessed while sipping stupid expensive wine and laughing at all of us? I wrote it off as silly (HA) and didn’t think much about it henceforth.

Until now, when I realized what I’m doing in this magical fourth step of my writing ritual.

This folder is a cluster-heap of all the writing blogs I “follow” and I check during this step. What I do is, coffee in hand, I go through each and every one, reading and reading and analyzing. These blogs and writing websites are devoted to advice by writers. Usually, in order for me to place a blog in this magical folder, I have to spend at least half an hour checking the author’s credibility. Criteria is as follows; the author needs to have published with a semi-professional company (this criteria is based on my own shallow opinions which I will not go in to), the writer needs to be writing in a style/genre I am interested in because of their work solely, and the writer needs to not be a woman.

That last one was a joke. Kind of.

I make this part of my exercise every morning (on my online dating profile, it says I exercise three times a week, no one ever said anything about it being physical) because I am looking for something. Some order of words that will kick me in the writerly nuts and make me say “AHA!” and become a better writer.

I’m slowly starting to realize that this is ridiculous. I’m looking for magic talismans and the literary equivalent of steroids, that this search is beginning to become fruitless and time wasting. My mystical vulgate is the folder.

The only thing that is going to make me a better writer is writing. And reading the kind of things I want to write.

I am not saying that I’m going to cut this stage out, I like hearing about other writers lives because I am so disconnected with other writers in my physical/personal life, but I am going to stop expecting “aha“‘s and the like.

Because, here is the last step.

Fifth, write like a shit crazy bitchtress on PCP.

Need more step five, less step four.

P.S.

Here is a great website containing essays on writing, one of the only ones I’m keeping in my folder, because it is seriously wonderful stuff:

http://litreactor.com/essays

A great blog.

Thu, 03 May 2012 13:58:41 -0400

A great blog. :

Read this blog, one of my greatest friends ever in life; a very talented writer and essayist.

On Inspiration (Part Duh)

Thu, 03 May 2012 13:32:44 -0400

My writerly woes only deepened when I happend upon this little diddy, ten years old and soooo in to Pokemon.

Up to this point in my reading life, my ten year old past self, I had probably dipped my my reading toes in to a couple big boy books; mainly young adult novels and a Wizard of Oz novel or two. My dad was probably in the process of reading me the second or third Harry Potter novel, chapter by chapter, before bedtime. I had attempted some other books I’m sure, although the fog of age and drugs has lessened my literary memory.

Anyway, my dad had this stash of books. They used to be in our garage, a cavernous space in my perspective that was filled with so many cast away machines and boxes. The lighting in there was always dim, and the shadows always ran with your imagination. The stash was focused in a large industrial sized metal bookcase in the middle of the garage, and filled with books. I’m sure there were a lot, but to my eyes there were hundreds. Hundreds of paperbacks with exotic names (Sturgeon, Bradbury, Poe) and thrillingly dark covers of which the likes I had never seen. My dad had collected this mammoth library of speculative fiction through his adolecent years, mainly middle school through college. There were covers that really actually terrified me, but gave me a secret dark pleasure when I stared at them. I had gone out there repeatidly, usually during the hazy summer afternoons, to look at these wonderful books.

I remember, one day before my best friend at the time was due to come over for the night (do boys have sleep over’s or slumber parties?) I had ventured out into the labyrinth of discarded possesions for a peak into the stash. I collected various books that I thought I could get my dad to read from, and took them back inside the house. I picked around twenty, although my dad only read from one to us, and we had to stop because of how scared we got. It was book of short stories with this incredibly gruesome cover, depicting a wall with eyes that was bleeding horribly. It was a poor drawing in the vein of any good paperback novel produced in the 80’s, but it scared the shit outta Alex and I. Anyway, the Stephen King novel was part of a box set, the set being something I’d picked out, the cover had entranced me (the same edition in the picture) and I had tossed them in to the stack to take inside. After my dad was done, he collected the books and took them back. Except for the Stephen King novels, which he curiously placed in the bookcase upstairs (planting a seed for me? mayhaps).

The next year or so, it was summer time again and I had decided to puruse the bookcase upstairs in a fit of boredom. My dad had gotten rid of all his paperbacks, without telling me, and I honestly hadn’t noticed because this was the summer I had been introduced to the poisonous Gameboy. Reading < video games: everytime when you’re younger (and in some cases [sadly, almost all cases] when you are a grown adult). I skimmed the titles on the spines of the books, stopping because the spine from one of the books in the box set, Carrie, caught my fancy. More like caught my horror; it was an edition realeased around the same time the movie came out and there was a wonderfully disturbing picture of Sissy Spaseck covered in blood and promising terrible wrath. I stopped, picked up Carrie and put it back after skimming pages. I moved to the next book Night Shift and put it back as well. Then, The Shining. I remembered the cover, sat down in our super squeaky old computer chair, and opened it up to a random page.

Anyone familiar with the novel can tell you what, perhaps, the most frightening scene in the book is. Speculation aside, I know what it is. The movie did this particular scene a quasi-justice, but I will never, EVER, forget reading it.

It was about halfway-ish through the novel, and the scene involved Danny, a ten year old boy (Hmmmm) exploring rooms in the empty Overlook hotel. He happens on a room he is not supposed to go into, and finds the door unlocked. He wonders inside, walks into the bathroom, and looks in the bathtub. Inside is a woman, decomposed. She wakes up, and attempts to strangle Danny. Cut to Jack and Wendy (Danny’s parents) aruging about something “yadda yadda you’re losesing it Jack” and Danny comes around the corner with burieses on his neck, stuck in a near catatonic state from the shock of the horror.

Now, reading this description, in which there is no attempt at giving justice to the scene, you can’t see what did it. In fact, years later, re-reading the scene creeped the shit out of me, but I didn’t feel the same feeling my younger self did. It didn’t just scare me back then, it terrified me. The same catatonia Danny experiences almost bled through the pages and enveloped me. I read the passage word by word, the suspense something incredible I have never felt before. It scared me so bad that I had nightmares about it, weeks and weeks afterwards. And, to this day (don’t make fun of me, shut up) I cannot go into a bathroom with a closed shower curtain. I always open it, especially if I’ve never been in a bathroom before. If you want to fuck with me/not be friends anymore, hide in a bathroom with the shower curtain closed. I’ll die.

The point is, I had not understood this power before. I thought I had, I thought I’d understood the power of writing as much as I could in my young child’s mind, but no. Not even close. The terror that spread through my mind and the terror that still lingers there is power. Powerful. It effected me as deeply as anything could, trama I will never forget nor live to forget. And how did it burst from the page and in to my mind to live and breed little fucked up horror babies? Simply by one word placed after the other, simply by a certain description. Simply by one feeling/mood/scene perfectly captured by language. And it was more effective than any image or experience I have had to date.

Years later, I reflect back on this experience constantly. It affirms my belief that words can manipulate emotion if done correctly, and that stories can be life changers. It’s perhaps the strongest reason why I do what I do, why I write, why I am a story teller.

I have the Night Shift copy in my bookcase right now, it’s still one of my favorite short story collections. That copy of The Shining is sitting in my desk at my parent’s house, in a drawer. I read the whole thing after that scene, starting a love for Stephen King and horror novels. That book is the most valuable one I’ve ever owned, it’s a weapon and a lesson.

The Tired Lyrics: What a horrible weekend I don’t want...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:46:58 -0400

The Tired

Lyrics:

What a horrible weekend

I don’t want to talk

I’ve been dying to talk, just not right now

You wouldn’t like me now, it’s to dark out

And I’m sick of no one, no one, no one

This is a song that was in a nightmare of mine, I tried to...

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 16:24:31 -0400

This is a song that was in a nightmare of mine, I tried to remember it the best I could and record it, taking some small liberties. Listen to with head phones!

Lyrics:

You’ve been diminishing

I know the difference in you, I know how everybody hurts

We’ve been watching you

I know the difference in you, I know that everybody hurts

On Inspiration (Part Uh)

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:23:39 -0400

Stephen Gammell’s masterpiece’s in Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark.

I don’t know how or when I came upon the Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark series, it was a combination of the elementary school book fair (where I also bought dubious amounts of Captain Underpants and probably some other young adult books that were more on the forgettable side [I don’t want to say that I bought Goosebumps there because I think that was earlier and my memory of childhood novels all meshes together in a kind of DELIRIOUSLY NOSTALGIC FUN TIME WARP OF FUN] but I do remember the first few Harry Potter books were there although I already had purchased them because I was always one step ahead with Harry Potter so suck it) or something my bestie and I shared because he was always sharing some stupid creepy paranormal book with me because we were self professed ghost hunters and amateur psychics. WHAT WERE YOU DOING WITH YOU CHILDHOOD.

DEEP BREATH. That was a mouthful.

Anyway, what I do remember about the wonderful series (that just had it’s 30TH ANNIVERSARY!) was that it scared the holy begeez out of me on a daily basis. You had your classic urban legends (The Babysitter, High Beams {a.k.a “The Man in The Back Seat}, The Bride) and then you had some more original, or at least less widely known an widely replicated stories/urban legends (The Thing, The Big Toe, Harold) and then there were some silly little stories to kind of give you a little break from shitting in your adolescent britches so you can mutter a few shaky chuckles (The Viper, The Hearse Song, Bad News). All were great fun and made for good times with your friends. I was the Gerald of my little group, so I had quite a lot of fun telling some of the stories out loud and scaring my friends half to death (in one, or maybe all, of the books there are some pretty detailed instructions for reading the stories out loud and when the best part is to scream out while you’re reading “The Big Toe” and the monster is creeping up on the unsuspecting but undoubtably wrongdoing children to eat them and it specifically instructs you to pounce on the friend next to you and scream as loud as you can “YOU HAVE MY TOE!”) and I did it every time we had a camping trip or just a overnight stay with all the lights out.

But, there was one story. The Dream. The premise was an art student wants to go to a certain little place to paint a picture or something silly and womanly and then she has a dream with THAT LADY IN THE PICTURE AT THE TOP where the scary lady tells her to stay away and then she goes to someplace else and I can’t really remember what happened because I’m pretty sure I’m still suffering from some sort of latent subconscious fear about that story and I can’t really remember it for some…can’t really remember it for some reason (Hmm, that’s strange, I just typed that twice and woke up in a pool of my own foaming spittle…OH WELL).

When I was younger, I didn’t know if I wanted to be a writer. But I knew I loved books, and I loved telling stories. Now that I’m a lot older and a little wiser I have come to the conclusion that this particular series and this particular story was one of the instigators leading to me becoming a slave to sitting in uncomfortable chairs while chasing ideas in my head so I can put them down with language laced hog ties onto a computer monitor. That I’m a writer. But as I decide to explore the reasons and sculptors that have made me the idiot I am today, I can’t help but thinking about this particular story.

And, it wasn’t really the story. Still, as an adult, I find it slightly amusing. I mean, the books were written for children, so I can’t reread the things and be all wow’d by the pretty parts of good fiction. But, they were still fun and I am definitely going to keep them for my kids so I can screw up their lives too.

But the thing that gets me is the picture. The image of this horribly unsettling woman peering over your bed. As I think about the things that got me on my way to being a writer, I realize a lot of them had to do with negative emotion and how it effected me in such a strong and lasting way. The story didn’t do that, because I honestly forgot all of it until I tried to reread it this morning (there I go blacking out again).

No, it was the image, it honestly gave me real deal nightmares and made me afriad to turn the lights off when I was a kid. Most kids dealt with this when they saw Gonzo the Clown or something else frightening, but it really did take a lot to scare me when I was a young child. This did. And thouroughly. I had to make myself think of the image every single night for at least a year so that I wouldn’t have to dream it (doesn’t make sense, I know, but it worked, and also scared me awake), and sometimes I still dreamed it. In my very young mind that had been desensetized by countless cartoons and computer and the internet (we had Internet then right? I can’t remember no internet and that’s sad), the idea that one single image taken into a certain context can have such a lasting impression on a person was a brilliant idea to me. How did that work? Was it just me (no, it wasn’t, I have talked with so many people who have felt the same way about these books) or did it have some universal effect on anyone who reads it?

Fear is a negative emotion. But just like pain and grief and anger, you can take the utmost base of a feeling or emotion, and give it legs with words and a head with a name or a place, and let it walk around; it will bump into someone and they will feel what you feel. If you do it correctly.

This book sat in my lap, and I didn’t think of just how scary it was. The man who created these images ate, drank, slept, took walks, and got scared just like I did. This image didn’t come out of the black festering void of evil and bad naughty things, no, it came from a man thousands of miles away from me and over a decade before me. And yet, here it was, in my hands, scaring me into a throbbing crying ninny. The powerful effect of any object born out of creation can inspire an emotion as base in anyone if they are willing to let it in.

That was the first inkling of the power of storytelling, the power of the transfer of emotion across expanses. And I liked it, I really fucking liked it.

My Quest(s)

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:50:43 -0400

It turns out it’s a lot easier to put together a bookshelf when you are sober and the instructions don’t look like a swimming blob of black pus on a bandage and your fingers holding sharp things aren’t swarming dillywobs trying to make carpentry genius.

For Christmas, I got a bookshelf. Along with a ton of books. My old bookshelf (on right), is almost as old as I am and has housed books from Goosebumps to Harry Potter to what now stands inside of it’s rotting guts (mostly the more “fun” fiction that I read, A Song Of Fire and Ice, Stephen King, Theodore Sturgeon, ect.), and now also houses my diminishing collection of regular format DVDs. When I got the bookshelf I envisioned it as something needed and something that would make me feel more accomplished. I finally got the silly thing assembled (on left; first attempt mentioned above) while watching Bronson with my roommate and my guitarist (an excellent movie if you haven’t seen it, Thomas Hardy and fighting and house music), and began to fill it up and move books around.

The second I tried to move my old bookshelf over, the back gave out and the middle shelf crumbled and gave up. This enraged me, because I had this grand picture in my head of two bookshelves ready to rumble, fully packaged, making me look smart to the invisible friends who live under my bed (not the bugs, those lady bug look alikes, I don’t give three fucking cents about how smart they think I am, I hate those assholes) and giving me that always needed reassurance; that no matter how much TV I tried not to stew my brain over (it really isn’t that much, I don’t watch cable, but Netflix…oye), no matter how much time I waste on stupid websites that have infinite distractions from the time where I should be writing, no matter how many times I have to repeat the automated lines of service at work, and no matter how many brain cells I burn off into brain cell oblivion while doing any other stupid activities/substances that are not previously mentioned, DESPITE ALL OF THAT I STILL AM A WELL READ INELLECTUAL WHO HAS A SHOT GODDAMNIT.

That’s the reassurance I need right there, to look at my bookcase and to feel warm and fuzzy.

However, as soon as I put every single book in my room/possession into the new case and did some rearranging, I realized how much time I’ve wasted. This isn’t every book I’ve ever owned, no, not by far. And I did sell a laundry basket full of books to Half Priced Books when I got back from Austin so I could have money to eat and do bad things; however those books sold were mostly useless to me and/or sturdy instructing non-fiction or books on graphic design (a career choice I quickly gave up on).

But still, it feels like it’s lacking. I have had a hard time reading these past few years, something that’s hard to admit out loud, mostly because of all the time I’ve wasted NOT reading. I did read two Vonnegut novels in a month (Cat’s Cradle and Godbless You Mr. Rosewater) but still…

So, I am trying to read every day, at least for an hour or two. There are just so many books I can learn from/experience intense emotions from/slober over that I haven’t gotten to yet, probably don’t even know about yet, and I only have so many days to read them.

My start off point on this new awakening is The Pale King by David Foster Wallace, the last and unfinished novel by the prolific writer before he hung himself in 2008. I may have made a poor choice here, because two days into the book and 40 pages in the read feels like a dive into a pool full of thick fudge-pudding in slow motion; not because I ain’t smart or DONT REED GEWD but because after almost every sentence or passage I have to go back and re-read SOMETHING because it’s either extremely well written and I want to feel miserable about my own writing abilities in comparison or because I don’t understand what the fuck he his talking about (so far the main character is an accountant and some of the slang and formulas they discuss make me feel like a unedjumacated jerk) or because I have to pause and look up a word I like and then write it down. Still, I am fascinated in it, and feel this gratefulness and awe for this man whose writing is so wonderful, and I am really enjoying it.

And here is about as much advice that I can give without being pretentious or accidently ignorant: Read more. Get to know a book. Think about your life. Think about other people’s lives. Create something. “LIfe isn’t a support system for art, it’s the other way around.”

Caelume: Lyrics (so far)

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:06:15 -0400

Caelume: Lyrics (so far) :

caelume:

Tundra #1:

Such a pretty girl, with a head full of world

And the lasting boy, now the world is your toy

But you never knew, just what love would do

It eats your feet first, to feed an age-old thirst

If you go, I’ll find you, I’ll find you, I’ll find you

If you…

Gonzo's practice and one's Wampeter.

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:09:03 -0500

I recently watched a documentary on Hunter S. Thompson and one of the first new and exciting facets I learned of Gonzo was that, in pursuit of his writing ambitions, he would type and re-type a work of fiction that inspired him and one that he could relate to. He chose, interestingly enough, The Great Gatsby.

I find this to be a valid and interesting method of learning the craft (art) of writing, not only because it is something to do to make myself believe that I am truly a productive student of letters (lol), but mostly because this is a exercise in learning the subtle (and other times thoroughly loud) language and style in what could be a literary masterpiece.

For Christmas, I received what one could label a “butt-load” of books. The contents of this stockpile consist of the most recent edition of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin, a five volume collection of the works of Proust (along with an equally thick navigation to the readings included with the set), a Dean Koontz novel from my little brother, and a collection of novels and stories by Kurt Vonnegut, along with his biography And So It Goes, included in the same box with a really neat t-shirt displaying an out of print cover illustration of Slaughter House Five (one of the novels included in the collection).

After a frustration with the fourth book in Martin’s series that still eats at me, I decided to put A Feast for Crows down and start on something closer to literature, in hopes of finding some satisfaction that I had been missing while wading through Martin’s expanse of Westeros, and a small hope that perhaps I’d find some enlightenment in an alternative choice of reading. And so, I committed a sin that any avid reader or would be author should never commit: I didn’t finish a work that I’d been trudging through in favor for some mistress of another read. It isn’t the first time that I had committed this distgusting crime of literature, and I would be an idiot if I presumed to say it would be the last time I had committed it. Call me a bad boy, I deserve it.

Almost a week later has lead me to the wonderful ecstasy that I have experienced just a few moments ago, and that was finishing the first of the novels in the collection of Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle.

If you are wondering if I did achieve what I set out to find, the answer is yes and no. I thoroughly enjoyed every word in the book and while simultaneously reading it for pleasure I read it analytically as well. Another read through would have to come around before I can speak with any authority on the later style of reading I attempted, but the pleasure part of the reading is a feeling still echoing through me. I loved the pace of the novel (meaning the short bursts of chapters and the asides to Bokononism) and I’m sure if I had the time I could have sat down and have read it all in one sitting. As soon as the last page was turned and I let the book fall into my lap I exclaimed “Wow. Awesome. Fucking rad,” or something like that. I don’t know why I waited so long to read Vonnegut, although I attribute my hesitation to a failed attempt at reading Hocus Pocus while I was in high school. Nevertheless, Vonnegut’s style and themes are something that has started to resonate deeply in me as something to aspire to.

So, will I start the practice that Thompson exercised by typing and retyping Vonnegut? Probably not, at least not yet. I still have all of the rest of the collection and the biography to read before I start to believe that Mr. Vonnegut is “the one”. However, I do think it’s a close running, and I look forward to the day (probably months and months from now) where I finish the texts and make a trip to the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in downtown Indianapolis and get to see some of the exhibits attributed to this master of satire and literature.

Rosemary's Baby and Moviegoers

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:34:41 -0400

The beginning credits to Roman Polanski’s epic, Rosemary’s Baby, start off with Mia Farrow’s haunting lullaby of sorrow while the camera sweeps around New York city, dreamily taking the viewer from rooftop to rooftop as if floating on every haunted syllable Farrow sings. This is creepy enough as it is when experiencing the 1968 blockbuster on a DVD or on TV. However, thanks to the Keystone Arts Cinema in Indianapolis, IN; the viewing experience of this truly horrifying film is much more personal and disturbing.

The theater started doing it’s midnight movies this month with The Thing, a screening of which I was also in attendance. I was perplexed by how much seeing a horror movie that I’d seen plenty of times off the big screen was such a different and truly moving experience when projected larger than life in front of me. It is almost a whole different viewing adventure. The Art Cinema’s comfortable seating, which I try to enjoy at least once a month, could not even tempt me back from the edge of my seat; the suspense was just too much fun in the big theater.

A big bonus of the theater that I enjoy and treasure highly is the fellow moviegoers I sit with. Most modern theaters cater to a very wide variety of people across a broad spectrum of viewing intent. Here, I made a chart:

I fall on the very left of that chart, while most modern moviegoers (it seems to the introvert) fall on the very right or right-middle of the chart. These people are categorized by cell phones going off, texting, talking in a voice over a whisper, kicking/putting their feet on your headrest, talking to the movie…

OK, maybe I am a snob, but I really think that most that enjoy films in theaters do so by paying attention to the movie and getting lost in it. The same can be said about reading a book, yet you don’t see your local library or coffee shop splattered with people reading with their feet in your face and their cell phones going off. Or at least, I’d hope.

The point is, the Keystone theater does not seem to attract these unpleasant individuals. Instead, I find myself constantly surrounded with like minded movie enjoyers, intellectuals (now I really sound like a snob) who pay their money to sit and watch a movie, damn it, and probably spend some time thinking about it afterwards.

This was another reason I enjoyed my late October foray into the heart of the Keystone theatre. Seeing a scary movie re-screened in theaters, especially at the Keystone Theater, is an experience I highly recommend.

The Antlers: Burst Apart

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:55:14 -0400

The Antlers’s newest record, Burst Apart, is a lulling and lonely record. Unlike the band’s previous records, Burst Apart is not linked thematically with words, but instead possibly with feeling; the growth of an individual. WIth songs like I Don’t Want Love, a snare driven, dreamy pop lull, Peter Siberman shows us the conflicted wishes and desires of two people, one yearning for another and the other wanting nothing to do with the other person. The song starts off with a trade off of wants from two different voices; the very welcomed voice of Peter Siberman sings the first line, while the higher falsetto completes his sentences. Though the voices come from the same man, in the context of the song we can imagine them as two different sides to a conversation.

French Exit seems to imply another conflict of interests, for while Siberman sings the first verse alone, the falsetto voice we came to know in the record’s first song comes to echo him in the second verse and halfway through the third verse, seemingly haunting Siberman’s words. Songs like Parentheses don’t seem to echo this theme too boldly, and other songs like No Windows seem to describe a sense of uncertainty, only for the record to turn around at Rolled Together to make the experience a uplifting one and more of a journey towards some sort of desired ending by the author of the songs; perhaps someone in a situation where change is needed. Corsicana seems to be a sad, nostalgic dream or memory related to loss and helplessness, a theme echoed in the band’s last record, 2009’s Hospice. The down-tuned piano and sad hope expressed in the lyrics are a final bit of deja-vu before we come to the last and final statement of change, the last track of the album; Putting The Dog To Sleep. The do-bop feel of the song and the minimalism midway through makes the song seem more honest and felt, more meant, but the author who took us through to the end of this record through so many doubts and troubled experiences.

I highly suggest this record for anyone wanting to go through a listening journey and someone looking for a record with high re-experience quality.

(I got into The Antlers around the release of Hospice back in 2009. It was a record I needed to hear at that time and it pulled me in to the world of hazy loss and emotional suffering at the hands of analogous memories in the songs. I went back and listened toIn The Attic Of The Universe a few years later, which I also thoroughly enjoyed. I was excited to listen to Burst Apart when it came out earlier this year; waiting for the record’s hype to die down before I listened to it, so that I could be unbiased to the songs.)

http://antlersmusic.com/