And the Sky Began to Scream.
Selwyn had to go to the vet for an eye infection. I waited in the freezing van, listening to Neko Case and shivering while heavy sleet pelted the windshield. Yeah, on March 31st. I may well be leaving Providence in the next few days, possibly for a couple of weeks. Spooky's looking at train fares. I've got too much work to do, and I'm strung out, and this interminable winter is making absolutely everything that's shit to start with far more the shittier. New England and I have come to our divorce.
I've thrown away Chapter Six of Cherry Bomb and absolutely everything, every goddamn word, I'd written on Chapter Seven. Today, I begin Chapter Six anew. Yeah, I'm that fucked. And there are so many difficulties going on here there's no way I'm going to bore you with the lot, but, in the end, this needed to be two books, not one. Or one 150k-word book. Neither of those courses were left open to me.
Quinn will discuss this very problem at the new beginning of the new Chapter Six. But, yeah. Drawing board.
Yesterday was spent putting together False Starts II, the 25k-word chapbook that will accompany the limited of Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea. It still needs an introduction.
SPOILERS AHEAD (if that sort of thing bothers you):
When I saw the final episode of True Detective, my second reaction - after "Jesus, this is fucking brilliant." - was, "How the hell is this popular? I don't believe for a minute people are getting it." I think those are close to the very words I said to Spooky, even as Rust Cohle confronted Errol Childress...and whatever stood behind Childress, pulling his strings. Now, this from setsuled (and I hope he won't mind my quoting him):
Having written my own review yesterday, I started looking at the reviews and analyses other people have written about True Detective. This negative review on io9 [I'm not putting in the link; Google it if you care] of the final episode complains the villain is revealed to be a white trash stereotype, adding, "Then he traipses over to his mansion, speaking in a variety of accents for no discernible reason," forgetting apparently that this is something white trash stereotypes don't do. But more importantly, the author of the article didn't realise the character was putting on just one accent, specifically James Mason's accent--we had seen him watching Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest in which Mason plays the villain. And that movie--and especially the scene the character's watching--is about a man who finds himself in a lot of trouble because the villains presume he is not Roger Thornhill, advertising man, but George Kaplan, secret government agent. It's an identity Thornhill is forced into against his will. Then consider the villain of True Detective's line to Cohle when he's trying to kill him, about Cohle "taking his mask off". But of course, Cohle can't do that because he's a True Detective. It's the villains of True Detective who are hypocrites and phonies.
Exactly. Thank you, Sets. All the Cthulhu hipsters who've never read Chambers, Machen, Blackwood, Karl Edward Wagner, Ligotti, Bierce, and probably not even Lovecraft, True Detective was not for them. It was for those of us who are literate and attentive and who are willing to work.
Now, I have an unspeakable mess to clean up, a mess of my own doing. Instant karma, if you will.
Later Taters,
Aunt Beast
I've thrown away Chapter Six of Cherry Bomb and absolutely everything, every goddamn word, I'd written on Chapter Seven. Today, I begin Chapter Six anew. Yeah, I'm that fucked. And there are so many difficulties going on here there's no way I'm going to bore you with the lot, but, in the end, this needed to be two books, not one. Or one 150k-word book. Neither of those courses were left open to me.
Quinn will discuss this very problem at the new beginning of the new Chapter Six. But, yeah. Drawing board.
Yesterday was spent putting together False Starts II, the 25k-word chapbook that will accompany the limited of Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea. It still needs an introduction.
SPOILERS AHEAD (if that sort of thing bothers you):
When I saw the final episode of True Detective, my second reaction - after "Jesus, this is fucking brilliant." - was, "How the hell is this popular? I don't believe for a minute people are getting it." I think those are close to the very words I said to Spooky, even as Rust Cohle confronted Errol Childress...and whatever stood behind Childress, pulling his strings. Now, this from setsuled (and I hope he won't mind my quoting him):
Having written my own review yesterday, I started looking at the reviews and analyses other people have written about True Detective. This negative review on io9 [I'm not putting in the link; Google it if you care] of the final episode complains the villain is revealed to be a white trash stereotype, adding, "Then he traipses over to his mansion, speaking in a variety of accents for no discernible reason," forgetting apparently that this is something white trash stereotypes don't do. But more importantly, the author of the article didn't realise the character was putting on just one accent, specifically James Mason's accent--we had seen him watching Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest in which Mason plays the villain. And that movie--and especially the scene the character's watching--is about a man who finds himself in a lot of trouble because the villains presume he is not Roger Thornhill, advertising man, but George Kaplan, secret government agent. It's an identity Thornhill is forced into against his will. Then consider the villain of True Detective's line to Cohle when he's trying to kill him, about Cohle "taking his mask off". But of course, Cohle can't do that because he's a True Detective. It's the villains of True Detective who are hypocrites and phonies.
Exactly. Thank you, Sets. All the Cthulhu hipsters who've never read Chambers, Machen, Blackwood, Karl Edward Wagner, Ligotti, Bierce, and probably not even Lovecraft, True Detective was not for them. It was for those of us who are literate and attentive and who are willing to work.
Now, I have an unspeakable mess to clean up, a mess of my own doing. Instant karma, if you will.
Later Taters,
Aunt Beast