wildcat

Possibly over the course of New Year's Eve -- well, more like New Years Day, only very early in the morning -- the universe may have vomited a spirit guide at me. I'm feeling very energized and invigorated by the new year! Which is a first. That exclamation point back there wasn't even tinged with regret or sarcasm. Sincerity? Is that really you?

Suffering Sappho! In between listening to samples of Chromeo on Christian's iPod and discussing different cultural approaches to magic realism, I managed to pump out nearly two thousand words before my darling laptop succumbed to low battery. Nearly two thousand words! The one scene, Monique and Felix in the back of the taxicab-- I've ended up trying to write that at least six times (as demonstrated by the horrors scribbled on page after page of my notebooks, aborted little scene restarts), but tonight it poured right out of me followed by another scene and the beginning of yet another. Adverbs, though, there were too many adverbs. But this is a first draft and maybe Templechurch lends herself too easily to adverbs and I'll just cut them out of Monique's sections altogether by way of balance.

Feels so good, coming as it does on the heels of the lightning rod that was last week, when Joy blew into town like a crooked carnival offering items of mysterious value and dubious honour. Like I said, New Years provided a spirit guide: a smoking playwright we met outside Michael's apartment building at 1 in the morning, stumbling out of a taxicab (in which "The Timewarp" had sputtered from the radio) and hearing tales of somebody actually going full throttle with his art and finding success in it. After the molasses I felt caught in last year, it seemed perfectly symbolic. And then days of writing postcard stories with a long-lost Renegade Poet in coffee shops, having a tarot reading she delivered with impeccable interpretation that encouraged me-- sorry, I feel rather out of breath tonight, I feel a little ragged at the edges and burning. All good filaments go to Tungsten City! The last week, the last week, it feels like ways of saying: I am not, I am not, I am not the same boy.

Which isn't to say that the year so far hasn't been fraught with melodrama and strife and ridiculousness, every week has its bad side (even last week). But I seem more capable of putting it into a box and doing something with it. I feel-- shit, this is one of those stupid, shit-eating grin New Years entries where everyone goes on at length about how THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT, but man!

As well, there's something highly enjoyable about watching Bender's Big Score with Michael, Joy, Ian, and Steph.

Not sure how I feel about Big Bad John's right now. It seems more and more respectable every time I go in there, as if just around the corner is a black-clad hostess with a tray of martinis. They didn't have any peanuts! It was all tupperware containers with popcorn inside! Steph being able to order food! And even being provided with cutlery!

I hate the next day, when you're trying to attack the draft and squeeze out more words but you start finding flaws in what you did the day before; or you're stuck in an interminable, embarassing scene but you have to keep pushing forward! Because in the heady, early days of a first draft, to edit is to fall by the wayside.

I hate when a scene just sputters out and I'm all embarrassed about it. Oh, not embarrassed because there's someone watching-- I'm writing this for me, and I'm boring me. But that's just one set of characters. There's this second set, and they're up next, and I'm much more interested in what's happening with them. Maybe because the conflict is all on the surface?

Word count: up to 4262, not a whole lot of them today. Though I have about twenty minutes before I need to put myself to bed, so maybe something spectacular will happen -- it's after midnight now, and I'm always at my best in the wee hours when I should be sensible and hiding under a blanket until unconsciousness takes me.

But this is just stalling, isn't it?

But what's that? That plaintive growl from the depths of the forest? My copy of the Devil Dinosaur Omnibus arrived today, demanding my attentions.

(Cover art by Jack Kirby)

Devil Dinosaur! The story of a roaring Tyrannosaurus Rex and his pet human-like-ape-thing, Moon-Boy. Or was that backwards? And sometimes Moon-Boy referred to Devil as his brother. The bone-crunching adventures of a big thunder lizard dragging around a hairy little creature who never did quite grasp the first person pronoun! Jack Kirby presenting us with cosmic god spacemen from above! Dinosaur-on-dinosaur violence! Kirby's version of the Garden of Eden?!

Devil Dinosaur wasn't always red like a fire engine -- when he was a little baby T-Rex, a rival tribe of hairy ape-men killed his mother and siblings, then burnt Devil! Bastards! Well, they'd just discovered fire, see, and they were probably all fired up from this weird black monolith that showed up the other week and taught them how to smash things. Luckily, Moon-Boy happened to climbing around at the fringes and tended to the dinosaur's wounds. But, don't you see? Devil Dinosaur is tragic, and follows the Batman mold of tormented heroes with dead parents.

But, it isn't all DOOM-SMASH-RAGE with Devil and Moon-Boy. Occasionally, Devil Dinosaur finds himself lost in the grips of existential angst:

(Jack Kirby again)

1. Tomorrow is an uncertain day, a bit like riding a roller-coaster but it's in the dark, and you can't see if the track is about to rise steadily upward or, you know. Plunge. Consequently, I'm disaster-planning -- clothes for the day need to be in layers and very warm. I need to pick up snacks which are not primarily sugar and will keep me going. It's actually been a little while since the situation has felt like this, and I'm feeling very up and not terribly anxious about the whole thing. It will be as it is, and I have to be ready for it.

2. Met up with Jenny G and Christian tonight at Dolce Vita for writing. I ended up writing about 1600 hundred words, which should be great, but I'm still feeling a bit bored and listless with this story so it's going to back-burn for a while. Or something. I don't know. The character mechanics just weren't working for me, they weren't feeling natural at all. Which isn't to say that the writing was terrible, per se, and there's some bits I can use. I'll try to play around with some story ideas tomorrow, see what sticks. Maybe I'll devote some time to some completely weird crap.

3. And holy shit! Killraven!

(Cover by Alan Davis)

Raised in a bizarre gladiator school on a future Earth conquered by H.G. Wells's Martians! A future where most people run around in very little clothes, often favouring leather singlets and BDSM weapon-harnesses! Seething, awkward psychosexual dramas played out with insidious, xenophobic overlords and genetically engineered freaks like a bounty huntress called "Mint Julip." I wouldn't mind tracking down the original, Seventies stories -- known for their weirdness and expansive stories -- because of the early P. Craig Russell artwork. But Alan Davis's odd little prequel is interesting in its own right. Prequel, reimagining -- either way. His dialogue is, as ever, very stylized and stilted, but the artwork is beautiful and whole thing is a prolonged sci-fi gladiator comic.

Well, I finished watching Heroes Season 2. Which was basically season 1 all over again, except with a murder plot. Oh, and instead of the big apocalypse being a nuclear explosion, it's a global pandemic. Once the Writers' Strike ends, what does season 3 hold? Is the big scare going to be propaganda and information technology wars?

And it's not even like Claire got any good horrible body trauma scenes, other than when she cut off her toe to see if she could actually regrow one. Instead, Claire mostly got a jerkface boyfriend with whom she had no chemistry -- is this the best they can do? Her friendship with Zach from the first season was so awesome, and they go and replace it with lame boyfriend who baits her like a jerk and then overprotects her -- first he's an emo outsider boy and then he's lame Protector Grunty Boy-Man.

Hiro is suddenly very good with his powers but consequently all the special effects are a bit blah and they don't really do anything exciting with him, visually. He just pops all over the timeline regardless of possible universe-peril, in hopes of saving everyone.

And basically, the story arc of the series as a whole could best be articulated by the actors playing Matt Parkman and Mohinder Suresh hitting each other over the heads with thick scripts while screaming "Daddy Issues!" Over and over again. Forever. Until they die. Until we die. Until the world is dust. Because that's basically what happens constantly in the second season. It's not even just that they have daddy issues, but everyone does, and everybody keeps talking about it, over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Which isn't to say there's nothing good about the season at all. Kristen Bell did a good job as a sociopathic electricity-flinging assassin. Except that she's a sociopath because her father screwed her up, of course.

Reginald Thackeray tweezes his eyebrows in the airport bathroom, waiting to get out of São Paulo. He has followed the instructions given to him over the phone by the man from Wisconsin (allegedly) -- he carries packets of salt in the pockets of his cheap charcoal suit, and has emptied several onto the green tiled floor in a loose circle around his feet.

Reginald has not been sleeping well -- not since he stole the painting. It has nothing to do with guilt, nothing to do with the millions of dollars in wrecked property and reputation that has fallen on the museum. Nothing to do with the fat curator out of a job, fired on the spot by an unfeeling board of directors horrified at the bad press. Reginald can't sleep because of the painting itself, haunted as it is rumoured to be. They say the paint itself is cursed -- that the violent reds are themselves the blood that trickled from Vincent Van Gogh's head shortly after he lost his ear.

He picked up the tweezers for fifty cents in an airport drug pavilion half an hour's block from here; the man on the other end of the phone was very clear that no transactions could be conducted with shoddy eyebrows or even the suggestion of a hangnail. The buyers were very particular people, he said. His voice displayed no traces of an accent and Reginald -- even now, even with his face jammed up against the mirror and the canvas rolled up in a carrying tube beside the sink -- Reginald can not help but try to place him, somewhere, geographically. He'd said "Wisconsin," but Reginald has heard midwestern folks before and the mystery accent seemed nowhere near.

"I see you followed my suggestion about the salt." The voice emerges from the mouth of the bathroom, the door, the strange man -- a strange man -- stands at the door. He wears a suit of higher quality, showed clearly that he could tie a tie with more accuracy. Pulling on latex gloves, he scratches his nostrils, leaving a large, red welt on the end of his nose. "An allergy to latex." He snaps the gloves as if to make a point and then smiles. "I appreciate the valiant effort at well-kept brows, Mister Thackeray. To a point."

Reginald tries to catch his breath. He steadies himself against the sink.

"Now," says the man, his voice still devoid of specific characteristics. He sets down a briefcase on the floor, opens it, beginning to examine the instruments held inside. "Shall we do business?"

(c) 2008 Ben Rawluk all rights reserved

(Look, all Monday nights can't be brilliant)

More and more of the Magnificent Bastards moving away from Victoria to escape bone-crushing ruts.

The phrase, "You Magnificent Bastard," seems to be a quote from Patton, not that I ever saw the movie. I maintain I got it from some other, unknowable source.

Writing last night did not feel productive, it felt destructive, all my thoughts came out as point form notes toward future stories. Instead of trying to produce something new tonight I'm going to edit the shit out of "The Awkward Haunting of Holland Birmingham," based on J's suggestions. Tomorrow is my day off and I can do some more work in the morning while I bake Irish soda bread.

I'm about fifty pages into Pynchon's Against the Day, reading it in slow chunks, enjoying it, enjoying the weirdness and the straight-up dime novel genre flourishes. It starts off with boy aviators aboard a zeppelin, on their way to the Chicago World's Fair following bizarre "Boy's Own Adventure" stories. They dissolve into depravity and noir. It's good.

I am made of points of light.

(Cover by Joe Orlando)

On my travels today, I picked up a copy of Metamorpho #5, from 1966. Little bit chewed at one corner (Baby? Dog? Doctor Doom?), some tape over the logo, but it was only a buck and it's Metamorpho, man! The Element Man! I loved Metamorpho as a kid, ever since I locked eyes upon him in an old Batman & The Outsiders annual, Metamorpho's wedding, as it turned out. He's a complete freak, so I liked him - weird-looking, prone to changing shape and chemical composition (Today his hand is made of cobalt! Or now, when he makes himself into an aluminum foil wrapper! Or he vaporizes into a gas, turns bits of himself into magnesium that explodes on contact with air...).

I mean! Look at that cover! Imagine meeting your evil twin and then RUSHING AT EACH OTHER in a fit madness, mashing together into barely contained metamorphic rage and then exploding into gooey crap-textured flesh piles. That's some bitter body horror.

Rex Mason, two-fisted archaeologist, happens upon a weird artifact called the Orb of Ra while tooling around inside a pyramid -- as you did, in the Sixties -- and it changed him into a weird customer with one leg one colour and the other leg another colour. And running around in little black trunks. His supporting cast, well, of course there was the love interest. Sapphire Stagg, blonde and pretty and having no problem with hanging out with her boyfriend when he's (a) freaky-deaky with a giant, say, magnet for a hand, or (b) covered himself with a rubber "Rex Mason" mask to look "normal." Right. After that was his sidekick/rival Java, a -- um -- super-evolved neanderthal? And by "super-evolved," I mean, "Neanderthal who can speak English and wears a cheap polyester suit." He was in love with Sapphire, of course, and when he wasn't driving the pair of them (usually making out, regardless of whether or not Rex had his face on), he was plotting to get Rex out of the picture and swoop in on the girlfriend. And the last cast member? Simon Stagg, Sapphire's father. Millionaire scientist who, like Java, was Rex's best friend and worst enemy. He was always plotting against Rex and then helping Rex and kidnapped his own daughter from that wedding I mentioned.

I also, for another buck, picked up a Metal Men comic from 1976 as well, with the robots (each one a different metal, including Tina the Platinum Blonde) fighting soldiers in Antarctica due to (shock!) a misunderstanding, and their mentor/creator, Doc, facing his own neuroses and psychoses as a pipe-smoking robot made out of pure plutonium. All my neuroses manifest mostly as paper and ice cream and lunch-time sushi runs. I fail at life.

Ah, this is how it goes: type out some shit, stare at it, delete it, rewrite it, stare at it, go trawling for images (Oh, sorry, Allen: shopping for images), find things, nothing really works, and then. BAM. You see something and it does that thing where it flips that switch in your head and then you have a story. Or, at the very least, a character. Or a character doing a small thing which might be the beginning of a scene.

Or, you know: "Sometimes I start with a letter..." Cue vomit and sadistic commentary over beers.

Earth day, even with all the water in the sky, or coming down from the sky, in various forms: sunlight when I leave the house for work and snowing when I get there. Twenty minutes in between, tops. But, still, it was an earth day-- laundry in the morning (okay, more water symbolism) and groceries in the afternoon. I cleaned out my fridge and changed the sheets. Even after six days of working, I feel relatively calm, and didn't lose my cool at work today-- I bustled, kept myself busy, listened to music on my iPod while searching holds & checking in A.V. over the lunch break closure (working a half-day just means that I get an hour of quiet while everybody else is having lunch). I felt solidly in the world.

Ha.

Laundry was its usual awkward proposition, as some guy felt the need -- with all the space in the mostly empty Sparklebright Laundromat, to sit right beside me, so I spent about forty minutes standing up in across from the dryer so I could drop in quarters at the appropriate intervals just to have some distance. Meanwhile, I was listening to the Simone Du Beauvoir centennial special of Writers and Company, which provided me some solace.

Picked up presents for Michael's birthday on Friday after I got off work. Downtown smelled a bit funny, and there was some woman in a wheelchair with a plaid blanket drawn over her knees catapulting herself backwards down View Street while barely looking over her shoulder, using only one of her feet to push off from the pavement. She had ratty brown hair, which could have been another colour underneath. And this wasn't just a couple steps; the woman was parallel to me on the other side of the street for nearly a block before I turned down Broad. I wonder what she was trying to get away from.

Cooked dinner at home, reread parts of Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers -- particularly the FRANKENSTEIN! chapters, with their purple-like-a-bruise narrative captions ("First over the horizon comes fear. And at its heels, terror. The flesh-eating horses of Mars are restless.") and fuck's sake! Frankenstein breaking up a brutal gold-mining slave ring on Planet Mars just because. John Carter of Mars funneled through Mary Shelley and Harryhausen stop-motion horror! After that I wrote for a while. I'm still going, feeling balanced, feeling inspired, all that.

Somewhere in there I messaged Joy with a scrap of something written about the Fear, for a project that she's doing about people's battles with that vicious demon of the inside bits. I was quite pleased with the end product, dashed off as it was, and I'm happy that I've made it through the day without too much of the Fear on my ass.

Somehow, yesterday actually felt like a day off. There was no crushing angst, no attacks of the Fear, no unfortunate work-related crap being dumped on me. I got up. I made a nice breakfast (steamed salmon and broccoli, because I'm weird), I called Caroline, and took my computer over to Dolce Vita to write. I wrote two thousand words on the swamp story, then Caroline showed up, she read the draft, gave me some ideas and pointed out some problems, we chattered and such while people-watching. Old ladies made a lot of noise. Then we went our separate ways, so I could get groceries and head to Michael's place to make stuffed peppers for dinner club. Which turned out really well, even as Michael and Lisa flirted with me as I cooked. It was, in all, the first real day off I've had in weeks, mostly because I felt good the whole way through.

And then today started off my fresh work week, which was utterly boring but not too bad. Nobody made me really angry, Melissa was back from Disneyland and we passed, like ships in the night. I was supposed to do some work on the story, but I watched Charlie's Angels and read the first volume of Warren Ellis's run on Thunderbolts instead.

Tomorrow's Michael's birthday, his first one in the new apartment. There will be a housewarming on Sunday, but I look forward to seeing him after I (eventually) escape work at nine o'clock.