077: The Active Conspiracy

It's turning into a gorgeous Saturday -- most of the early fog has burned off the water and I can almost see the white caps of the Cascade Range off to the east. My office is downstairs and the only window I have looks out at the cracked and weather-beaten planks of the fence separating our yard from the neighbors. This is the reason I have my desk facing the opposite wall.

However, this morning I'm on Baby Watch and I'm upstairs at the dining room table and the view from either window up here is the "limited water view" which our property assessment reads. The days have become noticeably longer as well. Sunrise happens near the beginning and end of my daily train commute; we no longer travel in darkness up the valley to Seattle.

As you can well imagine, the solitary act of writing is tough to accomplish in environments like this. We need our dark holes in which to craft our magic. You never imagine the alchemist's laboratory as having 360 degree floor-to-ceiling windows or an expansive deck which looks out across water or lush forests. You always think of dark cells, bleak dungeons, underground laboratories, forgotten oubliettes and barricaded garrets when you imagine where the creative process takes place.

Conspiracy theorists have the same trouble. No one really believes them during the daytime. There's no place for monsters to hide in sunlight. Subterfuge and evil machinations can't go out during the daytime, we tell ourselves. Following the byzantine threads of an ancient plot to control our minds and our souls is impossible against a backdrop of spring flowers and bright afternoons.

There's a conspiracy at the heart of THE BOOK OF LIES. Naturally. There's more than one, actually, and I'm sitting here in the warm sunlight, trying to think like a conspirator. But it's tough. It's a good day to do very little, which is exactly the attitude THEY want me to have.

If there is an agency whose raison d'etre is to control the minds and spirits of the population and the population is fairly content with their lot in life, could you actually consider the actions of this agency to be a conspiracy? Against what? If we don't care that we're being controlled, then aren't we tacitly agreeing to being participants in their plan? Is "conspiracy" simply then just "policy"?

And, if someone stumbles upon this "policy" and decides that it is wrong and must be overthrown, then aren't they the conspirators?

« « little fictions || 04.24.2004 @ 12:20 PM

Neanderthals = Nephilim

The Wayfarer Online has an interesting point by point argument that the ancient Neanderthals were actually the Nephilim of legend. It's a fairly extensive read, going in to a good deal of detail to prove its point and, while it makes leaps which aren't completely supported, it does make for a good bit of mythologizing. And there's not a thing wrong with a bit of conjecture and myth-making around here.

[via technoccult.net]

« « little fictions || 04.19.2004 @ 08:40 PM

076: Last Modified

The "Last Modified" flag on a Word file is not your friend; this little detail which stares at you unblinkingly is the sort of reminder which the self-conscious writer hates to read. "Last modified on 2/26/04." What have I been doing since the end of February? I ask myself. Will I even remember where I left off?

With all honesty, I'm having to admit that I don't have as much time as I would like; I don't have the luxury of uninterrupted hours in which to crank out several thousand words. Flow -- if it ever something which I might be able to capture again -- will have to exist in a suspended state, a nebulous cloud of stored work which hangs in my head and that I can easily dip into as necessary. Writing will become even more of a process of transcription as if I were just an agent through which the Divine were speaking. ("Mr. Kelly, I am ready. Please look into the scrying stone now.")

I've been spending time being fussy -- petulant, even -- and I haven't accomplished much other than annoy and frustrate my family. It's a vicious loop, actually, as this energy gets reflected back on me (and as I devour myself with guilt for instilling it in the first place) and, when writing time actually occurs, it isn't terribly constructive. My wife bluntly pointed out last night that it doesn't really matter what I've found to complain about, it's the act of being dissatisifed that I really cleave to, and she's right. It's easier to bitch about not having time and/or energy and/or the proper work space than to just get down and do it. Because when you're stuck in this headspace, you have an excuse handy when someone asks about your work. "Oh, it's not ready," you say and insert whatever excuse you're using this week.

It's your fear of acceptance talking. It's your fear of not being liked that is swimming in your throat. It's the fear that what you're making isn't worth anyone's time. If it is never finished, then it is easy to call the work the "most amazing thing in the world" because it may very well be so in your head.

Push on, young soldiers, push on. Open that file. Do not be frightened off by delays and doubts and the FEAR.

This is how the Monday morning pep-talk goes.

« « little fictions || 04.17.2004 @ 09:24 AM

075: Missed Opportunities

I watched the premier of Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital last month, and I want my money back. I saw the original Kingdom -- Lars Von Trier's sepia-tone vision -- in the theaters when it had a limited US run back in 1996 and felt that if I had to pitch the series to movie executives that my simple statement would have been: Twin Peaks in a hospital. King's version, which is going to run like a two-legged dog for another thirteen weeks, may be classified the same way, but with the additional caveat of "as imagined by a first year film student."

I don't know who the hack is that they've got directing the pilot (and, frankly, this is one thing that Twin Peaks got right -- get someone who knows something about atmosphere to direct your opening shot), but Craig R. Baxley is a case study in missing opportunities. He apparently doesn't know much about atmosphere or direction (though, checking IMDB, it looks like he's had a long career as a stuntman/stunt coordinator before becoming the red right hand of King's teleplay work).

Not that King's script was any tighter. The teleplay tottered and collapsed under the weight of excessive dialogue. From the inane voiceover which spoiled the entire mystery as to why Kingdom Hospital was haunted -- they had to tell us three times that Hospital lay on "uneasy ground" in case we weren't smart enough to figure it out for ourselves after the historical flashback -- to the poorly rendered and reserved mental dialogue that the painter carried on with after he had been hit by the van to the laconic and folksy voices which were inserted to give the animals human voice, there was just too much talking. And maybe I just don't remember the original all that well or maybe it was a factor of it being subtitled which forced me to concentrate more on the action than the tersely worded dialogue that ran across the bottom of the screen. Regardless, what debuted last night was toothless, dull, and pandering even to eight year olds.

Which makes me miss Mark Frost's All Saints that much more. That would have done something.

Anyway, to tie this into the discussion about sound. Here's one suggestion as to what would have made Kingdom Hospital more memorable. The painter is out for a run, listening to his aw-shucks countrified rock music on his headphones. He's got one of those Walkman's which you strap to your hand so that you can run hands-free. The song he's listening to is blaring through his headphones. This should be all that we hear because this is what he hears.

He gets hit by the truck, left by the side of the road, hallucinates the ant-eater, sees the truck driver who finds him, and is eventually rescued by EMTs. All of this should have happened from his perspective with the music going. We know his getting hit by the van is a stand-in event for King's own accident; we can imagine what happens when someone gets fucked up by a speeding truck. What we don't know is how terrifying and horrible it would be to lie by the side of the road, unable to move, unable to turn off the music being pumped into your ears. You're cut off from the outside world, trapped in your own insulated bubble, and all you can hear is the music. You can't hear what the guy who hit you is blubbering before he runs off, you can't hear what the truck driver is saying when he finds you, you can't hear what the EMTs are saying as they diagnose your wounds. All you can do is stare at their horrified expressions as they look at your mangled body and listen to that fucking music.

You couldn't even hear yourself scream when they move you. You can feel it in your throat as you cry yourself hoarse; you can feel the echo of your pain in the back of your mouth. It feels like they've left part of you by the roadside, but you can't even turn your head and see which part. They may be trying to tell you, but no one has turned off the Walkman yet. It just spins on, keeping you in the prison of your own personal soundtrack.

« « little fictions || 04.09.2004 @ 05:39 AM

Practical Alchemy

The Alchemy Web Site has an extensive library of alchemical texts made up for your web-based viewing pleasure. I was spending a little time the other night doing some reading and hit this interview with Jean Dubuis, founder of "Le Philosophes du Nature" (LPN). Hopefully, they won't mind if I quote a bit for your reading pleasure. The rest of the interview is equally interesting.

Stavish: Is alchemy for everyone?

Dubuis: Not everyone must become an alchemist. The whole of nature is a plan to make gods. We are all "zero beings" in origin, and all, with no exception whatsoever, we will be infinite beings at the end of time... Alchemy allows us to go faster, to get rid more early of our worldly burdens, but it is only one of the paths.

...

Stavish: What are some of the practical benefits of alchemy?

Dubuis: This is a very complicated problem. I think that with alchemy, or if you start with cabbala, or with a good Hermetic initiatic discipline, you can find your inner path within a very short period of time. It is difficult for the mundane world to understand, but if you don't take one of these paths, you will "go back up" in millions or billions of years.

What the alchemist, cabbalist, or other hermeticist must try and do is shorten the suffering of humanity. Not through soft-heartedness, to save lives or things like that, in details, but to put humanity back on the path that will allow it to go very rapidly to its own realization. After which, all of the trouble that appears in our material world disappears.

« « little fictions || 04.06.2004 @ 10:05 PM

Music from Numbers

This site offers a piece of software which will turn any number sequence into a piece of music. Try your IP address and here what personalized tone exists for your computer. Unless you're hiding behind a router and are using a 192.168.x.x address in which case you'll have the equivalent of "take me out to the ballgame."

« « little fictions || 04.04.2004 @ 08:49 AM

074: Running Solo

A question posited to me after I posted the quote from Berendt's book was: Would I rather lose my hearing or my sight? If you had the choice. I can't say that I'm eager to lose either, but if I HAD to, I'd lose my hearing. Which tears me up because I love listening to music. The rest of the noise of human culture -- the whining, the bitching, the constant drone of consumerism, the perpetual bla-bla-bla of disquietude -- I wouldn't miss. But music and the sound of the wind in the trees: these I would miss.

Because, you see, you can still function in human society without your hearing. You aren't a drain on someone else's resources if you can still see. It's when you lose your eyesight that you're solidly fucked. And I understand that there are people who manage quite well without their eyesight and I marvel at their tenacity and ability, but, in the self-reliance department, you're not a solo agent any longer.

Joseph Campbell's Hero Cycle argues that the hero is always alone, either in his cause (he's the only one brave enough, stupid enough, strong enough, etc... to accomplish the quest) or in the final solution when he is changed enough by the events of the quest that he no longer has a place in society -- the mythologically charged version of Colin Wilson's Outsider.

A conversation with Dr. Bull posted over at Wired News a few weeks ago discusses the impact of the iPod on modern culture. Bell points out that the personal music device -- especially ones with the prodigious storage capability of the iPod and the like -- allow you to create your own environment. By insulating yourself from the rest of the world by a buffer of your individualized soundtrack, you create a world which you control. You are your own God and Hero.

But you can still see; you can still participate in the rest of human society. You may not be important There, but Here, you are everything.

« « little fictions || 04.02.2004 @ 08:53 AM

writing

BIBLIOGRAPHY
This is a reasonably comprehensive list of my published work, both virtual and physical.

THE MISFIT LIBRARY
I am Nine of Thirteen, one of the members of the Misfit Library, a writing collective which puts out a quarterly journal of our respective work. We are scattered across the globe and determined to change the face of the planet one story at a time. The link above will take you to Misfit Central where you can acquire copies of the journal as well as read exclusive online material.

SYMBOLIC
I wrote a column for OPi8.com's Transmit blogs: journals of the new dark underground. SYMBOLIC tracked the novel I was working on, referencing the process and the research materials which mad up the backbone of the work. In addition, SYMBOLIC busied itself with ruminations and considerations on the nature of language and communication. And a wee bit of mythology. The first 100 entries of SYMBOLIC can be found here on this site as well as at OPi8.com.

LITERARY REPRESENTATION
I am represented by Scribe Agency as my literary agents. Please contact these gentleman if you have any queries about my work.