Writing, Writers, and Artists

"WHOM THESE CHAINS BECOME NOT SO", by Caitlin R. Kiernan, is the new Sirenia Digest story I read to-day. It's good. It's a sort of mash-up of the ancient Greek Andromeda story, altered so that she can expect no rescue, and a vignette of an author for the story discussing it with a friend and sometimes lover. The imagery in the Andromeda story is lovely and horrific. Equally so is the friend/lover's description of a strange dream.

Whether or not the author in the story is meant to be Caitlin and the other person someone she happens to know is never clear. It did get me thinking about the community that surrounds a group of writers and artists, such as the Beats, the Pre-Raphaelites, and the group around Henry Miller and Anais Nin. There must be many such groups and many, even for some that contain successful and famous writers, that are beyond living memory. I was sort of thinking about the extended group of fantasy and horror authors that includes both Caitlin and Neil Gaiman. If the sexual assault allegations do spell the end for Gaiman, it's going to suck for a lot of the people he was routinely generous to. I shouldn't be but I kind of am surprised by how quickly some readers are ready to wipe their hands of Gaiman. I've been coming to the opinion, though, that the reason Gaiman and his close friends have been publicly silent is that he plans to sue. And I think he has a great case and the more people who swear him off, he better case he has. Tortoise Media has taken some very suspect accounts of ex-girlfriends and couched them in malicious language and put what little substance they have behind a pay-wall. Sadly, there are many people now willing to "cancel" at the first use of the word "allegation". So Gaiman has plenty of ammo to claim damages.

Speaking of writing, I was watching Willow a couple nights ago and it occurred to me it's really badly written. I realise that's hardly a revelation to most people but I loved that movie when I was a kid. I was even really stoked for the Disney+ series. Everyone was feigning shock when Disney recently cancelled The Acolyte but the Willow series was a much bloodier execution. Not only did they cancel it, they removed it from the streaming service. Do you know how many crappy movies and TV series are still on the service? Air Bud is still on Disney+. Remember the one about the dog that plays basketball?

Unlike The Acolyte, which seemed to be made up of people looking for paychecks and status, the Willow series seemed more like a labour of love. Warwick Davis had been wanting to come back to the character since forever and he really seemed to have bonded with new cast members--all of whom I thought were perfectly fine.

All that love and camaraderie and Disney didn't just cancel they show they insulted them with a removal from the service. TaleSpin can stay, Willow the series has to go. Willow the movie is still on, of course.

And yes, I know Disney is using legal fine print from the Disney+ subscription to get out of paying damages to the family of a woman who died in a Disney restaurant, so I know they've done worse. But art is the primary topic for this blog, okay?

Anyway, yeah, the Willow series was indeed badly written. Though I don't blame Jonathan Kasdan and Bob Dolman who wrote the first couple episodes which I still think were fine.

Bob Dolman was screenwriter on the original Willow. As I was dozing through it a couple nights ago, it occurred to me how much the story is dependent on coincidences. There's the coincidence of the baby coming to Willow on the river, the coincidence of the brownies flying over Willow on the hawk once again carrying the baby. The coincidence of running into Madmartigan the second time in that tavern, of Bavmorda's daughter being there to personally inspect the place moments later. That kind of thing makes a fantasy world seem small. I mean, that's what you say when you meet someone who coincidentally knows someone you know; "It's a small world." The more coincidences you pile on, the smaller the world gets.

Take Star Wars: A New Hope as an example of the opposite. Now, let's ignore the fact that Anakin built C3PO and owned R2D2 in the prequels. Ignore the fact that Anakin grew up on Tatooine. In fact, let's ignore the prequels entirely. There are otherwise no major coincidences propelling the plot forward in A New Hope. Leia's blockade runner was going to Tatooine specifically with the intention of seeing Obi-Wan Kenobi. The droids are just droids on the ship among many--we see another protocol droid in the background. Leia probably chose R2D2 because he was closest at hand. Now, it was improbably good luck that C3PO and R2D2 weren't shot when they walked across the corridor in the firefight but, in terms of the plot, that could just as well have happened as not have happened--it doesn't move the story forward, it's just a bit of garnish.

The two wander the desert and they're both picked up by Jawas. It's not clear how much time passes from the time they land on the planet to the time the Jawas picked them up but it's not unlikely that the Jawas, being scavengers that roam the wastes, would have spotted the two shiny mechanical beings sooner or later. It's a bit of a coincidence that both droids meet again on the same sandcrawler but not a huge coincidence.

It would be a big coincidence for the droids to wind up with Leia's brother, Luke Skywalker, but I suspect Lucas hadn't thought of that yet. At any rate, it was far from anyone's mind who first saw the movie. When the movie first came out, as far as anyone knew, Luke's father was a Jedi who was killed by Darth Vader. And Vader killed a lot of Jedi. So it's not a big coincidence. So this all contributes to making the fantasy world fill big, composed of various people with various motives which would usually only coincide due to intent or natural flow of circumstance, making everything feel more credible and therefore lifelike.

I do like the prequels but I think my biggest problem with them at this point is the inclusion of C3PO and R2D2. Lucas was originally inspired by Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress which is told from the point of view of two peasants who are just trying to survive while the clans fight around them for reasons they don't comprehend. They have their own motives separate from those going on all around them. The first part of A New Hope is from the droids' point of view and it therefore makes sense we don't have much of a grasp of what motivates the parties at war. But the prequels are all about those politics--and, anyway, the way they're shot, they're clearly told from the points of view of the Jedi.

Anyway. I'm rambling a lot to-day. That probably means I'm procrastinating. By the way, here's a YouTube version of my Top 20 Pirate Movies post:

It took 24 hours to upload during which time I couldn't use the internet for anything else so do please watch it. Thank you.

X Sonnet #1874

Remember thirsty skulls control the woods.
So walking late, refuse to carry wine.
For ghosts recall the taste of spirit goods.
The afterlife a palate doth refine.
Contestants name a spotted cat as king.
The second bachelor brought a lively fish.
For singing pawns, the queen bestows a ring.
For swimming prawns, the princess grants a wish.
It's Pan whose appetite surrounds us all.
We know a film in truth is just a tree.
Remember words to make a stronger call.
A wasp is not a thin and longer bee.
You shouldn't tighten helmets through your brain.
A smaller skull is but a dodgy gain.

Who is Your Brain Voice?

Sometimes I wonder how my voice sounds in people's heads when they read my blog, or if they hear their own voices. I wonder if the tone I intend is coming through, though often I suppose it doesn't matter if it does or not. It seems more important for my comic.

Every now and then, I have an experience that reminds me of how differently people experience prose. I was reminded again reading an article by Terry Eagleton this morning on the recently crowned King Charles and a comment Charles had once made about Eagleton. The article, entitled, "Why doesn't King Charles like me?" seemed one that shifted between mildly bemused and idly contemplative. Then I scrolled down to the comments and found people taking Eagleton to task at great length for misunderstanding the general perception of the monarchy and for throwing "a hissy fit."

When I took a literary criticism class in college, I had to read a book by Eagleton detailing the history of critical philosophy and thought going back to Aristotle and reaching through the various, splintered concepts and theories of 20th century analyses. Throughout, I found Eagleton's tone to be unobtrusive and congenial, only occasionally offering his own point of view on different theories. It seemed as good as any source I could think of to inform myself on the topic and even kind of a pleasant read. I was surprised, then, in class discussion when many of the students vocally resented having to read the book and angrily accused Eagleton of hating literature and art.

It seems King Charles feels similarly, so I'm with Eagleton in wondering at this mysterious antipathy. I can't think of much to explain it beyond there probably being political connotations I'm unaware of. I remember some years ago watching a debate between Eagleton and Roger Scruton and Scruton coming off better in the debate but Eagleton never inspired the loathing in me other people seem to have for him. Even Scruton seemed to get along with him though he disagreed with him. Maybe I need to hear his book read by someone whose manner of speaking inexplicably sets my teeth on edge, like Olympia Dukakis.

Lately I've been listening to a YouTube channel of Dagoth Ur reading various short stories, mainly HP Lovecraft stories. It's part of a trend I've suddenly discovered of Dagoth Ur parody YouTubers making content such as tier lists and general commentary in the guise of Dagoth Ur. Dagoth Ur, in case you've never heard of him--and he is very obscure at this point--is the villain of the 2002 Elder Scrolls game Morrowind--the predecessor of Oblivion and Skyrim. I doubt Morrowind gets many new players these days and even people who played it twenty years ago might not rank Dagoth Ur as among its most memorable elements as he only appears briefly in the game. But he did have a distinctive voice. I remember my friend, Tim, and I used to like to imitate it. Apparently we weren't alone.

Listening to him read Lovecraft, though, I started to unironically enjoy it.

A Short One on Short Ones

A couple weeks ago, I asked third year students at the school I work at (students about 15 years old) to write short stories. Yesterday I started reading them and I've been surprised and pleased by the results. Some of them obviously copied off each other, a couple I suspect just put their favourite stories through google translate, and one student just copied Snow White verbatim. But several students made some really fascinating things that made me feel like I'm just getting to know some of them for the first time.

Several of the stories feel like dreams or nightmares. One girl, who I know spends a lot of time watching American YouTubers, wrote about the frustration of being lost in a forest where everything's fake. One boy wrote about a guy getting revenge on the owner of an orange tree by giving him a mysterious black orange.

Of course, several boys wrote about fighting while the girls wrote about princesses in distress. A few girls wrote about meeting idols or becoming idols. Mostly I'm just happy these kids seem to be having genuine fun with English.

Twitter Sonnet #1667

Across the sparkling surface ladies danced.
Resplendent rocks adorn the diamond moon.
Refined for purpose jewels were sure enhanced.
Her dazzled future filled a pewter spoon.
As sleep arose it buffed the blushing sprite.
Aboard the floating garden witches rest.
Against the beating waves a heart doth fight.
And little blinking tears inscribe a test.
Returning words approved a worthless dish.
Reversing food condemned the pipe to flames.
Quartets of chickens cheered the dogless wish.
Beyond the feather trail's a list of names.
Across a bridge of papers pencils crowd.
Released to-day, the felon band was loud.

Peter Straub

One of the great American authors has died. It's been several years since I read Peter Straub, who passed away a few days ago, but decades could pass and I'd still remember his work. He had the rare gift of combining the dead honest impression of human experience with the supernatural, and both aspects were enhanced by the juxtaposition. Ghost Story is his best known work and it's remarkable for its no bullshit vision of its characters who are intimately tied to something very strange.

He had a little bit of an internet presence in later years but I think he was too honest for this place. One of the things I'll always remember is a post he made to Facebook years ago that felt like such a marvellous anachronism. Just an honest impression of his experience at a convention of some kind. It read like a piece of published journal by an author in the '70s, like some lost Beat work or Gonzo journalism. At the time I thought, "This is great, this is exactly what the Internet needs. But he's going to catch hell." And that's just what happened. Unseen people spoke to him quietly and impressed upon him the importance for someone in his position not to say anything mean about anyone. His unflattering description of the event speaker was just that--unflattering, not really insulting. It was just part of an honest relation of his experience. But he had to apologise for it. Sometimes the internet is like the kind of person who needs therapy the most, it's therefore the same kind of person most likely to bludgeon a therapist to silence.

But fortunately, we'll always have his books. Like other great works of literature, these potent pieces of honesty are gifts for generations to come, remedies always waiting for you on the shelf.

Twitter Sonnet #1619

A plain idea was rendered weird for time.
Delaying thought, the status sucked the life.
For bread it seems is such an awful climb.
The morning bell could cut like butcher's knife.
The choice of grain diverts the stream to east.
Another pair of strangers dog the fan.
Behind the oven mitt we harvest yeast.
Another morning dropped before the pan.
The grim decisions filled a hot balloon.
In matters grave, the rapid footage dates.
But never old grew folks in Brigadoon.
Recycled scandals catch diminished rates.
Awarded dreams are broke with gentle horns.
Of this the panting crow forever warns.

Pulp from the Other Side

Maybe this is something that's been obvious to everyone else since it came out, but when I watched Pulp Fiction again last week, it finally occurred to me the whole movie is about alternative perspectives. Rigorously, in every scene, in every piece of dialogue. The Quarter Pounder has a different name for people who use the metric system, Jules doesn't consider a foot massage sexual, Marsellus throwing Tony Rocky Horror out of a window for it is excessive. Marsellus Wallace doesn't look like a bitch,

The joke Mia told on Fox Force Five changes significance throughout the story due to perspective. Even whether or not it's funny changes in significance.

Fabienne says pot bellies on women are sexy--she doesn't say she thinks they're sexy, she says they are. She doesn't understand Butch's perspective on the gold watch, causing her to forget it. And on and on.

I've always loved the moment when Vincent screams at Jody to get a magic marker. It takes a writer with guts to even attempt a joke that subtle. I've always heard those felt pens called "magic markers" but you can see from Jody's perplexity that she's never heard the term before, and it's likely many people haven't, including people watching the movie. And if you didn't know what a magic marker is, just think about how strange it would be to hear Vincent screaming about it in that moment.

Last night, I watched Taxi Driver again, which is on Netflix here in Japan. There's a similarly, very subtle joke when Travis goes for coffee with Betsy. When he tries to tell her about wanting a sign that says, "Organizized", it takes her a moment to finally get the joke that the word, in this sign, is itself disorganised. But to indicate her understanding, she says, "Like those signs that say 'think'," pronouncing the "I" like an "E". And you can see Travis taking a pause as he realises her intelligence doesn't match the lofty position of the pedestal he's put her on.

How many people would have understood that joke when the movie came out in the '70s? Few, I'd suspect, but a lot fewer now. I know what she's talking about because my grandfather worked for IBM and he had one of those signs. She saw the sign and she overthought it, revealing she's not really solid on how the word "think" is spelt.

When was the last time a movie had that kind of courage? Maybe I just haven't noticed.

Twitter Sonnet #1618

A giant eel was waiting back at home.
A strong baton could break a skinny lock.
The growing bus was eating breakfast chrome.
Important meals construct a fighting rock.
The pretty trees obscured a lack of light.
The wise alone can see the absent beard.
Computers delved beneath the Earth to fight.
A billion makes a writer shun the weird.
The zombie day was capped with humid cars.
Forgotten feet returned to kick the hand.
The artist waits behind the brittle bars.
It's clearer now about the errant band.
The second time an "I" replaced an "E"
A vicious wasp destroyed a plushy bee.

For Trees are Not Dead Things

I read the new Sirenia Digest this morning which contains an excellent new story from Caitlin R. Kiernan, "Metamorphosis C". In her prolegomenon, she discusses how it's a follow-up to "A" and "B" from 2006 but I found myself thinking of it as a followup to last month's exceptional story in the Digest, "Which Describes a Looking-Glass and the Broken Fragments". Both beautifully construct a fantasy world to make some very sharp points--in this case, "Metamorphosis" makes a point of showing how effective art can be in terms of its influence.

"For books are not absolutely dead things," as John Milton famously wrote in Areopagitica, "but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them." Certainly that must be true of an author like Kiernan who has talked many times about how she labours carefully over the construction of every sentence before continuing to the next, so it could very likely be said that her fiction writing is the most purely preserved extraction of her intellect. "Metamorphosis C" is a stylistic delight as well as an intellectual, though, being an example of a kind of Lovecraftian noir Caitlin excels at, the colloquial, conversational voice rattling about bizarre and degenerate threats serves as a nice palate sullier for the rest.

There's a switch in narrator from the guide in the first part, leading a second person to a mysterious oracle or seer of some kind, to that second person. From there the narrative takes on another layer as we find the sought after merchandise is a story, the implicit idea being that the perspective inherent in the story has made it seem worthy of suppression. And then the story itself is about perception, a perception of nature that allows the destruction of nature to seem more worthwhile than its preservation. The fascinating thing about this is that it doesn't merely condemn the destruction of nature but the path of misconception, based on paranoia, that brings someone to destructive acts. There's also a potent reference to Ovid's Metamorphoses and his story of Apollo and Daphne, a version that's a lovely mixture of the horrific and beautiful. A very nice new Digest.

Getting the Impression

The purpose of writing is to communicate. Either ideas, impressions, or facts, the point is to create something that ends up in someone else's mind where they can form their own opinion about it. But when readers are increasingly unable or unwilling to acknowledge nuance or complexity beyond the frame of a certain prescribed set of interpretations, the act of writing begins to feel sort of pointless. But writing may be the only way out, to let the light in, even if only a little, and limited by the extent of my own skill, so I guess I'll try again.

It's a well known quote but it seems worth repeating to-day; "Cinema is truth 24 times a second, and every cut is a lie." - Jean-Luc Godard. On some level, we're always aware of this instinctively. This is why Fred Astaire wanted his dancing filmed with as few cuts as possible, because then audiences would see his real skill as a dancer without any finesse manufactured by creative cuts. Of course, such "lies" are a part of the creative process of filmmaking. The lie of a cut is part of the fabric of the story, so when a video just over a minute long was posted on Twitter of a group of obnoxious white teenage boys surrounding a Native American man, it quickly fit into a story, the cut at the beginning and the end creating a sense of what happened, that, it turns out, is vastly different from the reality of what occurred.

No doubt it's embarrassment and shame that prevents many of the people in various media outlets from admitting they made a mistake. There are no apologies from The Washington Post, Slate, or, of course, HuffPost for telling the world that an apparently innocent teenage boy is evil incarnate. Now Donald Trump is the one using the word 'Evil': "Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be." The media did exactly what Trump always says it does, it modified a story to fit a left-wing narrative, and there's just no hiding it now. It's a great big gift to the right wing. If the Democrats lose in 2020, I don't think it would be unreasonable to point to this moment as when their fate was sealed. But this has been a problem for a long time.

In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote a satirical definition of the press as a court; "An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz. The Court of the Press":

POWER OF THIS COURT

It may receive and promulgate accusations of all kinds against all persons and characters among the citizens of the state, and even against all inferior courts, and may judge, sentence, and condemn to infamy, not only private individuals, but public bodies, &c. with or without inquiry or hearing, at the court’s discretion.

But the internet seems to have exacerbated the problem to unprecedented proportions. So why don't people watch the full two hour video of the altercation between the Catholic school boys, the Native American Protesters, and the Black Hebrew Israelites? Most people don't have two hours to watch raw footage of ordinary people wandering around a monument and arguing. On some level, people know, or they used to know, you can't get the full truth in a minute of footage. That's the responsibility of people who work in the news media, to, yes, create a narrative, but one that reflects the essential truth in lieu of the literal truth. Something packaged for people who work eight or twelve hours a day and don't want to spend all their precious free time on depressing news stories but still want to stay informed. This incident is an example of how people in the media have failed to be worthy of that responsibility. The effect of this may not ultimately be to convert people to one ideology but force them to submit to a vacuum. Garry Kasparov spoke recently about the chaos Putin and now Trump sought to exploit in order to assert and maintain power.

It's part of the reason writing feels kind of pointless. But now may be the most important time to fight that feeling.

Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progression, they sick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretick in the truth; and if he beleeve things only because his Pastor sayes so, or the Assembly so determins, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds, becomes his heresie. - John Milton

Books and Stories, Read and Read

On Sunday I read the new Sirenia Digest which contained an exceptionally beautiful story from Caitlin R. Kiernan, a story she wrote in 2009 for an anthology in tribute to Robert Silverberg and his novella Nightwings. I've never read Silverberg but if his work is anything like "The Jetsam of Disremembered Mechanics", Caitlin's story, I'd very much like to. Set apparently in a distant future where place names have changed to just barely recognisable--"Perris", "Stanbool"--the story follows a "Flier", a woman who belongs to a humanoid species with insect wings and other, subtler, distinctive differences from humans. Once again Caitlin shows a great talent for creating a character for whom the strange experience (from our perspective) is normal, their actions and behaviour never saddled with exposition or awkward moments where the normal things are newly noticed by the characters. At the same time, the narrative is never confusing, it has that wonderful quality of diving into a strange but also strangely familiar and fully formed world, like the first Star Wars movie. The language used throughout the story is lovely, too.

For New Years, Caitlin posted on her blog a list of the books she read in 2018. It seemed like a good idea so I thought I'd do the same. I'm including here only books I finished reading in 2018--there are a lot of books I read sections of for research purposes. As far as I can remember I read . . .

Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) by Sir Thomas Malory
The Faerie Queene (1590) by Edmund Spenser (re-read)
Paradise Lost (1667, 1672 edition) by John Milton (re-read twice, currently in the middle of reading again)
The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) by Tobias Smollett (re-read)
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle volume I (1751) by Tobias Smollett
Tobias Smollett (1821, a biography) by Sir Walter Scott
The Pirate (1821) by Sir Walter Scott
The Prince and the Pauper (1881) by Mark Twain
Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson (re-read)
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson
Milton's God (1961) by William Empson (re-read)
The Stuart Age (1980) by Barry Coward
Economic Expansion and Social Change: England 1500-1700 (1984) by C.G.A. Clay
The Literary and Cultural Spaces of Restoration London (1998) by Cynthia Wall
The New Milton Criticism (2012) edited by Peter Herman and Elizabeth Sauer

I can recommend all these books, especially Paradise Lost. I'm almost done reading Middlemarch by George Eliot. It's really good, more psychological than I was expecting, it seems more like a work by Dostoevsky than Eliot's British contemporaries. I've also been reading a lot of short stories, Caitlin's as well as bits from Yeats' collection of Irish folk tales. It's nice how there's always more to be read.