sovay | Of all its lives past and all the places I could go

Current Music: Temple of Angels, "Waving to the Wind"

Of all its lives past and all the places I could go

All of it sudden it feels like fall; the wind blows like dead leaves even when they're green on the trees. Autolycus has claimed my knees as his personal heat source. The crickets are aggressively loud, which is an improvement on the bass-heavy music of the upstairs neighbors which has been thumping on and off since the afternoon.

yhlee sent me what he described as a sea-themed bagatelle, which on arrival turned out to be a pencil sketch of a mermaid by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. I need more picture frames. And more bookshelves. Maybe I just need more walls. It is coming up on a decade since my library was really unpacked.

I was delighted to see that Tubi is currently offering my favorite bog body movie, Michael Almereyda's The Eternal (1998). I was introduced to it by

alexxkay in 2018 and loved it at once, although even then it was obviously in desperate need of a decent home release. The director, the main cast and crew are all still around; I feel some nice distributor of cult films should be able to commission some essays or commentaries and interviews and for God's sake some cover art that represents with any accuracy the film's dream-steeped deadpan. It got hung out to dry hard by its studio. It remains far more obscure than it deserves to be.

I had never heard of JewBelong before they started putting up billboards on Mass. Ave., but I am afraid that since the first one I saw asserted, "At one point there were six million people who never thought a few hateful comments would lead anywhere," it did not make me feel welcomed into a non-denominationally inclusive community so much as it inclined me toward vandalism because more victim-blaming is the last thing the popular reception of the Holocaust needs.

spatch spotted another apparently reminding that secular Jews were sent to the death camps too, as if pretending it's news that the scientific racism of antisemitism doesn't care about observance. From this statistically limited sampling, I gather the organization believes that American Jews are complacent in their assimilation and unaware of the dangers of antisemitism, which rather runs counter to their website's claim not to want to shame their readers for what they may or may not know about Judaism and also seems to me, especially during the High Holidays which have become spikes in necessary security measures for synagogues, fundamentally incorrect. I have decided not to engage with their internet presence further, but I am not looking forward to seeing the billboards again the next time I go to Porter Square.

I was reading Laurence Yep's "Dragons I Have Known and Loved," the speech he gave as Guest of Honor at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in 2010, and while I know that characters are really not their authors fissioned off into suitable narratives, when he prefaced his experience of a glider flight which he took dubiously as research for Dragon of the Lost Sea (1982) with "Now I had always been happy with my relationship to gravity. I did my job by staying on the ground, and it did its job by keeping me there," I heard Squeaky Lau so strongly that I am trying to locate a copy of Mountain Light (1985) as we speak.

I would still really like to be rested, or nourished, or un-stressed enough to write about movies, but it may be that the most I can say about Carbine Williams (1952) is that while its casting of James Stewart, Jean Hagen, and Wendell Corey did ensure that I was never bored with its actors, in terms of dramatic interest it really shouldn't have been able to waste the surefire American weirdness of a protagonist rehabilitating himself as a gunsmith while serving a thirty-year term for having shot someone.

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Thanks for the tip on The Eternal. I've actually been suggesting that Kestrell should propose it for one of her International Gothic Scholars meetings.

Thanks for the tip on The Eternal. I've actually been suggesting that Kestrell should propose it for one of her International Gothic Scholars meetings.

You're welcome! I'd love it if she did.

"At one point there were six million people who never thought a few hateful comments would lead anywhere,"

Oh what the FUCK now. Even I know that the issue was that there were a couple hundred million people who 'never thought a few hateful comments would lead anywhere' no matter how vocally worried their neighbors, coworkers, etc, among the six million became. Until one day those fellow residents somehow weren't around anymore, how did THAT happen? Oh ffs. I am so sorry you had to see such bullshit, especially during the High Holidays, that ANYONE had to see it and either feel the betrayal of facts or absorb lies.

I wish my throwing arm were better.

big hugs

Even I know that the issue was that there were a couple hundred million people who 'never thought a few hateful comments would lead anywhere' no matter how vocally worried their neighbors, coworkers, etc, among the six million became. Until one day those fellow residents somehow weren't around anymore, how did THAT happen?

Right? And from a Jewish organization, which I had to check because my first instinct was trolling! What the hell!

Oh ffs. I am so sorry you had to see such bullshit, especially during the High Holidays, that ANYONE had to see it and either feel the betrayal of facts or absorb lies.

Thank you. I wonder if it is worth calling the City of Cambridge and complaining. I don't know the office in charge of billboards.

I wish my throwing arm were better.

I would buy you so many tomatoes.

*hugs*

I'm sorry you're still not feeling any of those things, and I hope you are soon! <3

What. why. even. are those billboards? How did enough people in that org get up in the morning and think that was a good thing to put out there? /o\

The 'bagatelle' sounds lovely! As to walls, maybe you need a TARDIS-like room installed in the house?

I'm sorry you're still not feeling any of those things, and I hope you are soon!

Thank you! I did sleep last night for the first time in two days, which of course seems to make me even more tired, but has to be better for me than the alternative.

What. why. even. are those billboards? How did enough people in that org get up in the morning and think that was a good thing to put out there?

I don't know! I wouldn't have! I don't think anyone I know would have! Just none of us have the energy to put up billboards!

The 'bagatelle' sounds lovely! As to walls, maybe you need a TARDIS-like room installed in the house?

What an ideal suggestion. I really think I do. I would never worry about where to put my library again.

(It's really neat! I should track down the finished painting it turned into.)

I think one of the things that boggles me most about this approach to encouraging religious observance is that it's not as though the carrot is not available. "It's almost time to build a cool little house outside! Judaism: we've got some good stuff you might not be doing. But you could!" "HAPPY NEW YEAR! you get to say that four times more if you're observant!" "Don't mean to brag but have you SEEN the Purim cookies? you haven't? maybe you should be more...nudge nudge...observant...." are all things you could say if you wanted to poke people toward more observance in the positive direction. I personally do not have a horse in this race, as I am not Jewish and also do not care what level of observance people who are Jewish follow. I can see how any type of "do our religion my way not your way" approach might grate. But this is just...not quality work, just from a "what is your goal and what materials do you have to work with" standpoint.

But this is just...not quality work, just from a "what is your goal and what materials do you have to work with" standpoint.

I got hung up on the guilt-tripping historical falsification, but you are absolutely correct that I cannot be the only Jewish passerby who responded to the billboard with instant NOPE, militating against the success of whatever their aim was supposed to be.

(The secular Jewish one seen by

spatch seems particularly confused to me, since while I know a whole lot of secular or minimally observant Jews, none of them are doing it in hopes of staying under the radar of antisemitism, it's the Judaism they have either inherited from previous generations or found for themselves and either way has much more to do with individually negotiated relationships to an ethnoreligion than some idea of passing, which is the sort of thing that actually lets me know I would not belong according to whoever designed that billboard.)

I rather like "Don't mean to brag but have you SEEN the Purim cookies?" I mean, have you seen them? Especially the poppy seed ones?

I have. They're glorious.

But yes, my ex-bf who has a T-shirt that reads JEW-ISH is not trying to pass as nothing Jewish to see here, antisemites, pass on and hate crime the next person, he's making a statement about, as you say, a complicated individually negotiated relationship to an ethnoreligion. That he is actually pretty thoroughly claiming. It's just such a thorough misunderstanding of the situation.

I got an opportunity to introduce The Eternal to my colleague who loves cult horror the other day -- it's the first time I've been able to tell her about a movie she didn't know already and I felt so smug!

I got an opportunity to introduce The Eternal to my colleague who loves cult horror the other day -- it's the first time I've been able to tell her about a movie she didn't know already and I felt so smug!

That's so cool! I hope she enjoys it! Congratulations!

I support the vandalism idea. WTF!?

Awwww, very fond memories of reading Lawrence Yep's books entirely out of order as a tween.

I support the vandalism idea. WTF!?

Thank you! I got nothing!

Awwww, very fond memories of reading Lawrence Yep's books entirely out of order as a tween.

Reading the Golden Mountain Chronicles out of order is the way to do it! They weren't written in order.

Yep may count as one of my formative authors, although I don't know if it's visible in my own work at all, just because I read him so early and glommed on to his books so hard; I discovered Dragonwings (1975) on my own time in elementary school and had read at least The Serpent's Children (1984) by the time we were assigned Child of the Owl (1977) in class. It really was like piecing together family stories, recognizing a name or a part of history. I remember being devastated by some of the endings of Dragon's Gate (1993), which I read in sixth grade as soon as it came out. Mountain Light I actually can't remember reading until my family's trip to Hawaii during the spring vacation which followed the April Fool's Day Blizzard of 1997, which matches the publication date of the paperback edition I read on the plane. I was stunned in high school to pick up an old World's Best Science Fiction and discover his first published story was near-future sf for adults.

I was reading the Dragon series, which I'm pretty sure is mean to be read in order written, but WHOOPS. I was mostly reading them chapter by chapter while hanging out in libraries while travelling, and hoping the next library had one, so I couldn't tell you much about them, other than that they made an impression.

I was reading the Dragon series, which I'm pretty sure is mean to be read in order written, but WHOOPS.

Okay, that one does have a series plot, but also wonderful images, so I'm glad it worked out. Dragon Cauldron is my favorite for numinous WTF.

the surefire American weirdness of a protagonist rehabilitating himself as a gunsmith while serving a thirty-year term for having shot someone

It does seem like they should have been able to do something interesting with that, because wow.

It does seem like they should have been able to do something interesting with that, because wow.

It's aggravating! Partly it suffers from the unnecessarily popular problem with biopics where their versions of history are less weird than the real thing—it's not a minor gloss that the historical David Marshall Williams seems to have been a lot more like one of the protagonists of Gun Crazy (1950) whereas Stewart's Marsh Williams is a Hollywood-issue aw-shucks "rugged individualist" who may not even have done the crime he was sent up for. Partly it doesn't seem to have known how to take advantage of its own dramatic material, fictitious or no—I have no idea whether it's true that Maggie Williams formed a friendship by letters with Captain H. T. Peoples, the warden of Caledonia Prison Farm where her husband was incarcerated, but it's a fabulous suggestion of unexpected compassion on both their parts, it yields some early bitter comedy from Marsh's resistance to writing to his folks while on the inside and Cap's counterintuitive insistence to the contrary, and otherwise the film blows right past the possibilities of this three-cornered emotional structure except for the climax of the successful field test where Marsh is embraced by his wife and shaken hands with by Cap at the same time. The story is framed as the illumination of a complicated man to his son who has never known the full truth about his father, but nothing in it is really ambiguous, only misunderstood. Cap gets more of an arc than Marsh does, coming around from by-the-book antagonist to maverick ally to the point where he puts not only his reputation but his freedom on the line of Marsh's promise that he won't try to break out with his prison-smithied gun. Obviously Wendell Corey can sell this kind of turn like nobody's business—he never makes it look foregone and he isn't phoning it in, even if his Carolina accent sometimes ghosts on him—but even if I have always gravitated toward secondary characters, I feel it is generally understood that protagonists are supposed to be compelling to the audience, and what's compelling about Marsh is Stewart's craft as an actor, not any of the sprung and balanced ironies of his life that the film should have been able to make the most of.

Those billboards sound hideously tone-deaf, to put it kindly.

I thought I was an oracle deck witch and Tarot just didn't resonate with me right up until I watched a flip-through of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's Shadowscapes Tarot. I loved the Major Arcana, but it was the Minor Arcana, and the court cards in particular, that sent the kind of bolt of figurative lightning through me excellent poetry does, and sent me rushing to Law's website to buy a deck. In fact, I bought my sister two non-Tarot prints for last Yule and her birthday, and I bought myself a print of the Page of Wands, a card that later ended up being part of nearly every spread I drew in the free Ultimate Tarot Masterclass I took. I have plans to buy several more pieces, as money allows, as well as the artbooks related to the deck. Initially, I expected to be most drawn to the cups suit, which is the element of water and is represented by mermaids and sirens in Law's iconography. There's something about her wands and swords, though, that speaks to me.

::bookmarks The Eternal::

Those billboards sound hideously tone-deaf, to put it kindly.

It doesn't feel like a good sign that the first thing I wanted to know after the initial shock of NOPE was whether it was a real Jewish organization or some kind of astroturf.

I thought I was an oracle deck witch and Tarot just didn't resonate with me right up until I watched a flip-through of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's Shadowscapes Tarot. I loved the Major Arcana, but it was the Minor Arcana, and the court cards in particular, that sent the kind of bolt of figurative lightning through me excellent poetry does, and sent me rushing to Law's website to buy a deck.

That's an endorsement. I will have to look into it; I know it by reputation, but I can't call any of its images to mind.

Initially, I expected to be most drawn to the cups suit, which is the element of water and is represented by mermaids and sirens in Law's iconography. There's something about her wands and swords, though, that speaks to me.

And that's so neat. What does she use for them?

::bookmarks The Eternal::

Yay!

It doesn't feel like a good sign that the first thing I wanted to know after the initial shock of NOPE was whether it was a real Jewish organization or some kind of astroturf.

I can see why. Were you able to find anything? If they're a real organization, do they have any kind of forum for feedback?

That's an endorsement. I will have to look into it; I know it by reputation, but I can't call any of its images to mind.

Here's a silent flip through, for when you have the spoons for it.

What does she use for them?

She takes inspiration from myths, legends, and fairy tales from all over the world, so while I'll be using primarily Western words and concepts, I can't say they entirely encompass the figures she creates. The wands suit is the suit of fire, and she pairs elves/Sidhe/changelings with foxes and some big cats. Since it's the suit of passion, communication, and creativity, the figures also tend to be portrayed engaged in creative pursuits. My beloved Page of Wands is shown playing an instrument akin to a violin or viola.

The swords suit is the suit of air (though I have heard compelling arguments that these two suits were intended to be flipped, with wands as air and swords as fire, Law clearly goes with wands/fire and swords/air), and the humanoid figures are all winged, though the size, shape, and position of the wings varies. They are paired with birds for the most part, though I want to say there are also some insects (it's been a while since I did a reading, and I keep my deck wrapped in a pure silk scarf when not in use). The pentacles, the suit of earth, again look like fae of some sort, but they are paired/intertwined with trees and vines, and have a rootedness to both their appearance and poses.

Were you able to find anything? If they're a real organization, do they have any kind of forum for feedback?

They appear to be a real Jewish organization with a disclaimer on their website defending their flip, hip style against charges of disrespect, but it's worded as if their critics are all humorless frum pedants, not cultural coreligionists who think their Holocaust messaging sounds way too much like right-wing gun nuts who like to play gotcha with the canard that no Jew fought back against genocide. They do have a contact form. I suspect I should construct a more coherent communiqué than what the fuck was that I had to look at for Rosh Hashanah?

Here's a silent flip through, for when you have the spoons for it.

Much appreciated!

My beloved Page of Wands is shown playing an instrument akin to a violin or viola.

Nice. May I ask what makes the card so important to you?

I like the use of foxes and big cats for fire.

They appear to be a real Jewish organization with a disclaimer on their website

Okay, I just read that disclaimer and wow. Wow. That sure is a thing somebody wrote and apparently several other somebodies saw fit to sign off on. I kind of feel like it invites exactly the sort of feedback it's your first instinct to write, but then again, there's very much a "we dare you" tone running through that disclaimer that makes me think their only reaction would be smugness at having provoked outrage.

May I ask what makes the card so important to you?

Oh, gosh. That would take at least one essay, a chapbook, and probably a novella. The short version is that I have a deep affinity for string instruments, especially violins and guitars, a deep affinity for foxes, an abiding love for changeling spirits, and the Page of Wands is variously known as the passionate creation/inspiration card. That really speaks to me at this point because I feel like I'm finally starting to really come out of a fallow creative period that started over ten years ago, when both my health (never great) and my marriage (rocky for most of its duration) disintegrated at an accelerated rate. Through the six years prior, I had managed to establish a regular writing habit that allowed me to be unprecedentedly prolific; what felt like overnight, I was reduced to clawing together barely enough words for school assignments, and sometimes not even that.

I am still not even close to where I was at the beginning of that six year period, but I can see it from here, if that makes sense. The Page of Wands feels like an affirmation from my own subconscious that I'm moving in the right direction as I learn how my creative brain works now.

I kind of feel like it invites exactly the sort of feedback it's your first instinct to write, but then again, there's very much a "we dare you" tone running through that disclaimer that makes me think their only reaction would be smugness at having provoked outrage.

It has struck me that I may have found where the Jewish edgelords hang out.

Oh, gosh. That would take at least one essay, a chapbook, and probably a novella.

Well, I'll read all of them.

I am still not even close to where I was at the beginning of that six year period, but I can see it from here, if that makes sense. The Page of Wands feels like an affirmation from my own subconscious that I'm moving in the right direction as I learn how my creative brain works now.

I am glad you have that lighthouse.

*hugs*

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Of all its lives past and all the places I could go

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