From Seas to Theatres

It's spider season here again in Kashihara.

This morning I finally had time to read the latest Sirenia Digest, number 200. For this issue, Caitlin R. Kiernan created a story about stories. Not an unusual matter for her but it's particularly appropriate for a commemorative issue of a monthly digest of stories.

One scene of the protagonist dreamer glimpsing a variety of fish reminded me of Salman Rushdie, in one of his own famous postmodernist commentaries. Other parts of the new story from Caitlin, "A Travelogue for Oneironautics", reinforce the impression of a story commenting on stories. The dreamer and another character, a naked woman in a sailcloth, traverse a sea of red water, and both are unable to access their identities or motivations. The dreamer seems more interested in making the attempt than the woman, who seems content or resigned to her own ambiguity. This dynamic is repeated as the scene shifts to different locations and time periods, with the woman being replaced in separate occasions by a sort of werewolf and then a talking dog. And always, as is so often the case in Caitlin's fiction, the protagonist seeks answers from a conversation partner unwilling and/or uninterested in providing them. That in one case this is symbolically portrayed as a kind of violence to the dreamer, in the case of the werewolf, has an intriguing implication of how the refusal to divulge information may be a kind of harm. It brings to mind the lyrics to The Beatles' "I'm So Tired".

It's another nice and haunting story for the Digest. May there be many more.

Twitter Sonnet #1634

A case was tossed beside the road for beer.
Some extra paint would never catch the eye.
A park contained a bloody mob of deer.
The offered cookie fell beneath the sky.
The cans of ships were fresh as evening grapes.
A morning stew was fit to shave a beard.
Remembered treks could fill the ancient tapes.
There's something strange to see but never weird.
The peaks of Peck were dark above the glare.
A devil boy detained the sternest man.
A Doctor told the captain, take the stare.
The empty words combined to feed from Pan.
A faceless man has stumbled 'pon a mug.
The tangled brain was used to weave a rug.