watch the clock move the slow hand
As everyone probably already knows, it's the sixth day of June, in the year two thousand and six, which means the standard numerical writing of the date leads to 06/06/06. Thank God: for once, I don't have to worry about getting the month and day in the wrong order. I should go catch up on all the paperwork I can find.
No, truly, this is an auspicious day, and, already, like some hideous Black Mass, my life has been turned on its head and all that is holy seems to have been recited backward: this morning I found out that French toast with the healthy bread is actually better than French toast with the unhealthy bread. It was a moment of darkest revelation, and it tore at my soul even as I speared the heart of the inferior breakfast food with my fork and set about my gloomy task. Oh, the horror.
It loses some of the impact, of course, because 666 isn't actually the Number of the Beast anymore; it's 616, a slightly disappointing revelation, since 666 looks much suaver. Think of it as "Satan - 50 points of sheer cool".
To get myself all primed up for the unholy day, I have naturally been reading comic books, since everyone knows they're the tools of the Devil.
First up was Neil and Dave's Violent Cases. It's kind of about memory, and kind of about children, and kind of about violence, and mostly about Al Capone's osteopath. And it's fabulous.
The thing about Neil's stories is I always have the feeling something huge, something incredible, a sleeping beast, is lurking just underneath them, and I can't quite get far enough in to wake it. They're disjointed, but they make sense on a level more important than logic: as though the world really is as strange as he writes it, and you absolutely know these wonders are out there if only you could understand. I can't tell if they're shallow, like funhouse mirrors, and I'm only straining to touch a distorted reflection that seems more true than the reality, or deeper than stagnant lakes, and I'm reaching for something that slid by, smooth and terrifying, for a moment, right below the surface.
There's a block, in downtown Knoxville, that used to be an entire storey lower than it is now. When they filled it in, they walled up and boarded off the windows of the shops and houses on either side. It's all still down there, in the cellars: the backs perfectly preserved façades; elaborate, blocked doorways leading to streets only worms still use; often times with the furnishings still there, rotting slowly away. Most people think it's a myth... but sometimes, walking down the street, you'll pass a little grating, or a square of concrete with thick glass squares embedded in it like a mosiac. If one of the panes is broken, or you have a flashlight, or the sun is shining in just the right way, you can see down into the old rooms, and feel a draft of cooler air.
That's exactly what Neil's stories are like.
And this particular story is assisted beautifully in its task by Dave McKean's artwork. He uses a perfect combination of dull, dream-like tones, mixed-media artwork, briefly sketched characters and smudged, child-like perspectives, and it complements the weird, blurred lines of the story so well I can't imagine one without the other. (Is it coincidence that the narrator looks like Neil?) And that's the highest praise I think I could give a graphic novel.
In fact, go buy this. Right now. You won't regret it, I promise.
I have a bit less to say about Frank Miller's Sin City, possibly because it's all been said already, and more likely because I read them all in the same day and subsequently my brain is utterly fried. Suffice it to say, Miller's art and words are oil slicks on pavement, and will leave you feeling very, very dirty and entirely too good about it.
In other news, I am now such a raging jasmine tea addict that, this morning, I hauled the jug into my room so I wouldn't have to get up to get refills. I lead a sad, sad life. But a caffeinated one.
Here, have a song.
Skies of grey are not today...
No, truly, this is an auspicious day, and, already, like some hideous Black Mass, my life has been turned on its head and all that is holy seems to have been recited backward: this morning I found out that French toast with the healthy bread is actually better than French toast with the unhealthy bread. It was a moment of darkest revelation, and it tore at my soul even as I speared the heart of the inferior breakfast food with my fork and set about my gloomy task. Oh, the horror.
It loses some of the impact, of course, because 666 isn't actually the Number of the Beast anymore; it's 616, a slightly disappointing revelation, since 666 looks much suaver. Think of it as "Satan - 50 points of sheer cool".
To get myself all primed up for the unholy day, I have naturally been reading comic books, since everyone knows they're the tools of the Devil.
First up was Neil and Dave's Violent Cases. It's kind of about memory, and kind of about children, and kind of about violence, and mostly about Al Capone's osteopath. And it's fabulous.
The thing about Neil's stories is I always have the feeling something huge, something incredible, a sleeping beast, is lurking just underneath them, and I can't quite get far enough in to wake it. They're disjointed, but they make sense on a level more important than logic: as though the world really is as strange as he writes it, and you absolutely know these wonders are out there if only you could understand. I can't tell if they're shallow, like funhouse mirrors, and I'm only straining to touch a distorted reflection that seems more true than the reality, or deeper than stagnant lakes, and I'm reaching for something that slid by, smooth and terrifying, for a moment, right below the surface.
There's a block, in downtown Knoxville, that used to be an entire storey lower than it is now. When they filled it in, they walled up and boarded off the windows of the shops and houses on either side. It's all still down there, in the cellars: the backs perfectly preserved façades; elaborate, blocked doorways leading to streets only worms still use; often times with the furnishings still there, rotting slowly away. Most people think it's a myth... but sometimes, walking down the street, you'll pass a little grating, or a square of concrete with thick glass squares embedded in it like a mosiac. If one of the panes is broken, or you have a flashlight, or the sun is shining in just the right way, you can see down into the old rooms, and feel a draft of cooler air.
That's exactly what Neil's stories are like.
And this particular story is assisted beautifully in its task by Dave McKean's artwork. He uses a perfect combination of dull, dream-like tones, mixed-media artwork, briefly sketched characters and smudged, child-like perspectives, and it complements the weird, blurred lines of the story so well I can't imagine one without the other. (Is it coincidence that the narrator looks like Neil?) And that's the highest praise I think I could give a graphic novel.
In fact, go buy this. Right now. You won't regret it, I promise.
I have a bit less to say about Frank Miller's Sin City, possibly because it's all been said already, and more likely because I read them all in the same day and subsequently my brain is utterly fried. Suffice it to say, Miller's art and words are oil slicks on pavement, and will leave you feeling very, very dirty and entirely too good about it.
In other news, I am now such a raging jasmine tea addict that, this morning, I hauled the jug into my room so I wouldn't have to get up to get refills. I lead a sad, sad life. But a caffeinated one.
Here, have a song.
Skies of grey are not today...