strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
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May 28 08: when in doubt
Meanwhile, The Story With Wikipedia In continues to flounder. I realized today that I’d written four pages of my main characters blabbing on and wondering what the hell the plot was supposed to be. That is probably a sign that the author doesn’t really know the answer either.
I think I need to add a tulpa to the mix and see what happens.
ny moment #47,365
I have had quite a few moments of fabulous metropolitan culture in the last ten days or so: dancing until 3 at Habibi, the monthly bash for NYC’s gay Arab community (yes, really; the dance music, from Egypt Lebanon Syria et al, is fabulous, and the partygoers handsome); seeing Boeing Boeing on Broadway; Fleet Week. Oh, and the new Indiana Jones movie.
But none of them came close to seeing Greg play at the Duplex tonight. The crowd was tiny — me and Velma and Fred, a handful of drunken British tourists — so Greg got to make some calls that he might not have attempted for a fuller house. Including a whole lotta Kate Bush. He did “Wuthering Heights”; he did “Hounds of Love”; he did “Cloudbusting.” And then he went straight into “And Dream of Sheep,” which made me happy; and then he went straight from there into “Under Ice,” and we realized he was making some kinda banzai run through The Ninth Wave, and we didn’t know whether to fall out of our chairs from the shock or just howl with joy and laugh and wave our arms. Because Greg is a Kate Bush geek who plays a mean piano and has a lovely clear tenor voice and was fully capable of pulling something like this off. He did a quick here-are-the-highlights of “Waking the Witch,” he did “Watching You Without Me.” He went straight on into “Jig of Life.”
The other Kate fans in the room were in awe (and did all we could to throw in the umpty-leven other vocal bits). Those too young to know The Ninth Wave — which, because I’m sure my father is wondering, is the astonishing song cycle on the B side of her towering 1985 work Hounds of Love — had no effing idea what was going on or why we were losing our minds. Who the hell tries to perform The Ninth Wave on an upright in a West Village piano bar?
Anyway, just to be cheeky, he went about eighteen bars into “Jig of Life” and then segued gently into some Elton John tune that the Brits had requested. We hyperventilated quietly in the back; I ordered another ginger ale.
It rocked. Sure, I’m hopped up on ginger ale and it’s 3 in the morning, but I wouldn’ta missed that for nothing.
May 26 08: progress
It’s a beautiful day in New York City — sun shining, weather warm but not insane, pedestrians handsome — and aside from a trip to get a sandwich at lunchtime I have spent it at home, either writing or poking about the Internet doing some research.
Today’s progress on the story with Wikipedia in it: first ~1300 words. I have a goal, I have a mechanism, I have some characters who seem willing to banter interestingly with one another. Much of what I have written may be cut, but it got me to where I am, so fine. I have reached the point where the goal must be addressed directly. Once again, I realize I have no overt conflict on the horizon. Not sure what it’s going to be, exactly, and I tire of smacking face-first into this same structural issue over and over. On the other hand, I had no bouts of oh my god run for your life today, so perhaps I should take my triumphs where I found them. Thirteen-hundred words, y’all.
Yay. I’m off to get a margarita now.
May 25 08: estrangement
Am trying to circumvent the antimuse again; the story that seemed so full of promise a couple of weeks ago disintegrates every time I try to touch it. I need to stop trying to think the short pieces through start-to-finish before I sit down to write them, because that way leads to an endless loop of “wait, this aspect of the plot doesn’t hold up under scrutiny; think of something else.” Until the whole damn thing is dead, vivisected into unrecognizable dog food on the table. But the ability to just sit down and go, which used to be something I could plug into so easily, has gotten tangled up in something very frightened. Sitting on the balcony this afternoon I was no more than a page into an attempt at the story in question before I found myself beset by the urge to throw the laptop over the rail, hurry hurry hurry. Because apparently smashing my computer and possibly killing some random stranger 13 stories below was preferable to tuning into the celestial radio without… without I dunno. Without the promise of something “good” in exchange, I suspect. Just to be safe, I moved into the bedroom before continuing. I am very tired of this particular neurosis.
Anyway, here’s something fierce to scare away the demons. Research suggests that it’s an Australian performer named Strykermeyer; the song he’s covering using is Laurie Anderson’s “Sharkey’s Night” (1984). Video is apparently from a documentary made to accompany a DVD release of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Strykermeyer did performance makeup for the film’s drag artistes.