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Finding my way to something in the MainFictionThing by having a document open on the Infinite Canvas based on the Reveries section of Mervyn Peake's TITUS GROAN (currently reading and loving: Gormenghast will be the first fantasy series I've completed): the internal thoughts of all the characters at Titus's birthday breakfast before the next turn happens. Useful exercise even if it's doubtful that I'll use it in the final thing, find the rhythm of characters' thoughts, etc etc.
Combining with something Kim Stanley Robinson said in a recent City Arts and Lectures episode : that the novel (paraphrasing here) isn't a tool for self-expression but rather a way to get inside the heads of your characters, of other people. Playing that up here – not that I'm writing a novel – at least I don't think I'm writing a novel but who knows: maybe this is the inversion of the seven-year paragraph – or maybe a brief flash of getting somewhere before it all comes to a(nother) halt. Whatever it is, I'm going to run with it until I fall flat on my face.
Spent a bit of time waiting in a parking lot (grocery store: my wife got solo grocery shopping down to a science during the pandemic so we’ve decided not to fuck with perfection) this morning and took the opportunity to use it as a case study in my effort to use my Kindle Paperwhite with greater frequency: Economist and NYRB subscriptions show up there now; HOW TO TAKE SMART NOTES in there, too - a book I don't necessarily want to read in my daily reading blocks but do want to peruse in times outside (such as titular parking lot). While the PW's shit for reading comics, it's great for reading manga - ASTRO BOY, LONE WOLF AND CUB, and the third volume of BLACK JACK dwell there as well. That it still had 76% battery life after being buried under piles of books and Bergman / Varda Blu-Ray doorstop sets for three months is an added bonus… she’s seriously got it down to a science: I was in that parking lot for all of 20 minutes, maybe. Respect.
Concept art for MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949) | via
While I try to highlight mostly lesser-known artists with my EarBlissery, I’ve had the 20th anniversary edition of ( ) on a loop the past week and I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t include it. Still holds the same raw power as the first time I heard it, all those years ago. One of the best.
Slowly, slowly getting this space to what I want it to be: a tweak here, a tweak there. I want to write here with more frequency - scratch that: I want to think here with greater frequency. The whole timetable thing is in the process of unfolding, seeking a balance between discipline and freedom or, rather, trying to find the sweet spot where discipline IS freedom – and a time where I'm not using these as an excuse to not do the deep work required for the Main Projects. More GOLDENEYE awaits; newsletter Sunday tomorrow feat. Informalities debut. ‘Night.
Perused a new antique mall (that used to be an old motel) with good friends and found these treasures:
Clockwise, from top: a bedraggled Charlie Weaver Bartender toy (I’m fond of his dystopian look, skeletal frame revealed in torn clothes); vinyls of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” (by the Cincinnati Symphony) and first pressings of Dylan’s HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED and Lennon’s PLASTIC ONO BAND (one of my favorite albums); and TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED No. 41, September 1959.
Very pleasant Saturday.
