I seen the man that made it all

[sovay]

I went right back to not sleeping. I haven't been this exhausted without respite in a very long time. I keep having to remind myself that it is not an emotional symbol, it's just the physical effects of too little sleep and a schedule that interacts badly with everything else about my life, but it is both not very pleasant and familiarly boring. It leaves me feeling I don't have much brain to do anything with. I did manage to attend the opening night of A Man for All Seasons, which was a good strong start, and then came back with my parents (who were celebrating their thirty-ninth anniversary) for the second night, which was even better. This afternoon is the matinée and derspatchel's on his own. Have some things.

1. As far as I can tell, From Hell (1999) is the first book by Alan Moore I have uncomplicatedly liked. It may be a book I had to wait for: I can remember looking through an early edition in the Million Year Picnic when I was in college, but it didn't grip me then; I remembered scattered frames and sentences, but nothing of the structure or the spiraling conspiracies, absolutely none of the psychogeography which I wouldn't have known the word for at the time anyway. This time I just admired. The footnotes aren't even the best part. I borrowed rushthatspeaks' copy; I need to find my own. I need to track down Iain Sinclair's early work.

2. Solmate Socks are just as good as everyone recommended. I bought two pairs from Firefly Moon on Tuesday (Equinox and Nebula) and ordered two more; they are why my feet weren't worse off the night Rush and I waited forever at Kendall Square. Rob and I are time-sharing a pair of Luna, since he can't really wear more than one sock at a time right now. They are warm and sturdy and handmade and weird; this covers most of my criteria for clothing.

3. I think Robert Aickman's "Ringing the Changes" is one of the most refusing stories I have ever read. It's not just that it doesn't explain anything. Any sufficiently elliptical narrative can do that. It's that at numerous points throughout this one, events present the opportunity for explanation (why Holihaven, why bells, how does the sea figure, what the fuck happened last night) and each time the story simply walks on by. I did what had to be done. I hope I was in time. The emotional effect produced by this technique is not quite like anything I've encountered in other authors. The first few times, it's almost too obvious: it feels coy, a textbook exercise in denying expectations—yes, Aickman, I see what you're not showing me there. By the end of the story, however, it seems only a natural consequence of the events described therein. It's not deliberate withholding; it's more like resignation, or fatalism, or just plain indifference. Explanations wouldn't help. The protagonists wouldn't be better off knowing and neither would you. Things happen; you live through them or you can't. You go on honeymoon and the dead rise. What can you do? (But then, one of the protagonists has not behaved from the start as we would expect her to—as her husband did, irritation giving way to dread as the bells rang on relentlessly in this crumbling little seaside town. We'd have been frightened, too, wouldn't we? What if the problem isn't with her, it's us?) In other news, it does not at all surprise me that the cover illustration of the edition of Cold Hand in Mine (1975) Rush lent me is by Edward Gorey.

I should go out. Too much of my life lately has been running around, which is different.

Comments

[red-queen.livejournal.com]

Get some sleep if possible. I've been so tired that I couldn't stop crying. I never want to be that tired again, nor do I want anyone I know to experience it.

I, too, need a full bound copy of From Hell; I read a few of the installments when it was coming out monthly, and was very impressed. I gather from your statement that you didn't like Watchmen, or liked it with serious reservations?

I'm planning to see A Man for All Seasons on the last weekend of the run (and somehow would also like to find time to see Working at the Lyric-- argh!). I'm looking forward to it, even tho' my Tudor history is rusty at best.

[ron_newman]

I saw the matinee today, and Rob was great (as was the rest of the cast). He made the crutches an integral part of his character, which must have been quite a lot of work to do late in the production. I also loved the boat ;-)

[sovay]

He made the crutches an integral part of his character, which must have been quite a lot of work to do late in the production.

He's very good with objects.

I also loved the boat

Cromwell's to thank for that. He brought it from his day job. It was the right idea.

Write a review! Publicity is a good thing!

[sovay]

I gather from your statement that you didn't like Watchmen, or liked it with serious reservations?

I can appreciate what Watchmen is doing, but there are pieces I just think are tremendously stupid (Rorschach's therapist is a terrible therapist and if a conversation about the nature of evil is going to break him, he should never have made it out of grad school, let alone gotten a job at a prison) and I admire what it did for the field more than I find myself wanting to re-read it. I don't claim to have a comprehensive knowledge of Alan Moore. I need to read more than the one volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V for Vendetta deserves a re-read because I was in grad school the last time; I think Lost Girls is one of the most visually beautiful books I've ever spent an afternoon ignoring everyone else in the room for, but I'm not sure that it's doing anything intellectually I haven't seen before. I bounced horribly off Neonomicon. From Hell I just really liked.

I'm planning to see A Man for All Seasons on the last weekend of the run (and somehow would also like to find time to see Working at the Lyric-- argh!). I'm looking forward to it, even tho' my Tudor history is rusty at best.

You could brush up on the political situation if you really feel like it, but the play takes care to explain itself as it goes along. It's an excellent production. I'll write about it soon.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

From Hell ♥

I love it to pieces and it only gets better with reread. So many amazing things, from the sheer amount of the research that went into it to the way it doesn't actually matter whether the magic is "objectively" real or taking place in Gull's brain, since the effect is exactly the same. This most recent time I noticed, with delighted unsurprise, that Gull is speaking in meter for the entirety of the tour of London that makes up issue four. I also remain very fond of Eddie Campbell's art, with its occasional air of letting us peer at murky old photographs through pools of ink, its chiaroscuro and sudden clarities.

It also gains more resonance the more of the lumber room of British literature and personalities I get into my head; the first time I read the thing I was young enough that I didn't know quite how hilarious it was for Aleister Crowley to accuse Madame Blavatsky of being the Ripper, and then I came back years later, having hit the Spiritualists from another direction, and hurt myself laughing. From Hell is not how I found Iain Sinclair-- that would be Angela Carter's loving review of Downriver-- but it is one reason I looked so hard for his work after it proved not to be readily findable, why it stayed on the list for years until I got to places I could locate rarer books.

[sovay]

This most recent time I noticed, with delighted unsurprise, that Gull is speaking in meter for the entirety of the tour of London that makes up issue four.

I did not notice that, but of course he is. I love that Netley pukes at the point where the reader can't take any more sun-and-moon secret history, either.

I also remain very fond of Eddie Campbell's art, with its occasional air of letting us peer at murky old photographs through pools of ink, its chiaroscuro and sudden clarities.

It is wonderful art. I don't find it beautiful, but I don't believe I am supposed to; I love how it lets its faces shift between very recognizable and human and sometimes lovely to very recognizable and human and sometimes awful to barely recognizable and hardly human and neither of those irrelevant things. It is meticulous about its architecture, which is always recognizable. (I believe Moore admits in the notes that as fast and loose as the novel plays with the possibilities of the Ripper case, its London is as accurate as he and Campbell could get it.)

From Hell is not how I found Iain Sinclair-- that would be Angela Carter's loving review of Downriver-- but it is one reason I looked so hard for his work after it proved not to be readily findable, why it stayed on the list for years until I got to places I could locate rarer books.

Lud Heat (1975) and White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings (1987) are the ones I really want now. In other news, it doesn't actually surprise me that one of Sinclair's novels from the '90's was illustrated by Dave McKean.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I didn't know quite how hilarious it was for Aleister Crowley to accuse Madame Blavatsky of being the Ripper, and then I came back years later, having hit the Spiritualists from another direction, and hurt myself laughing.

This is a favorite trick of Moore's and shows up very obviously in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen where, if you're at all familiar with Victorian books for children, and Victorian 'underground' literature, you can absolutely hurt yourself laughing at the Invisible Man sequence.

[gwynnega]

I hope you can get some sleep soon.

Meanwhile, at least you have excellent reading material!

[sovay]

Meanwhile, at least you have excellent reading material!

I do! I thought I would curl up in bed with it. I've been reading Alan Moore and Robert Aickman before bed lately, so it can't be any worse for me.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Err...no comment except that you not sleeping sucks.

[sovay]

Err...no comment except that you not sleeping sucks.

Thanks. I'm really trying.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for your lack of sleep, and I wish you more and better of it.

I'm glad A Man for All Seasons has gone well. Happy Anniversary to your parents!

Glad you've warm socks and good reading material.

[sovay]

Glad you've warm socks and good reading material.

Thank you. I am enjoying the comfort of these things.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Hooray for lovely mismatched handmade socks and for finding the bit of Alan Moore's oeuvre that suits you. I am very fond of his Top Ten which might be the fluffiest thing he ever wrote (a world where everyone has a super power) -- particularly where it delves into fairytales, even if I don't always agree with him, it's entertaining.

I'm hoping to go see A Man for All Seasons before Arisia consumes my focus. Sadly we don't seem to have the standard 3 or more panels together this year, so I'll doubtless see less of you, but hopefully you will not be exhausted all con.

*sending sleep*

[sovay]

I am very fond of his Top Ten which might be the fluffiest thing he ever wrote (a world where everyone has a super power) -- particularly where it delves into fairytales, even if I don't always agree with him, it's entertaining.

I've never even heard of Top Ten. I have trouble conceiving of Alan Moore as "fluffy," but I suppose it must have happened sometime. I'll look for it next time I'm in the Million Year Picnic or the relevant section of a library.

I'm hoping to go see A Man for All Seasons before Arisia consumes my focus.

There is a Thursday night show, so you have that option! I won't be attending any more until the end of the run, I think, but that doesn't mean I won't cheerfully funnel everyone I know toward the intervening performances. And regardless of schedules, I will see you at Arisia!

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings is wonderful. Have you ever seen any of Sinclair's films?

[sovay]

White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings is wonderful.

That's probably the top of my list right now, although I've been curious about his poetry since Downriver.

Have you ever seen any of Sinclair's films?

No! I don't even know where to look for them!

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Annoyingly, now I've mentioned them, neither do I. Apart from London Orbital, which is available on DVD. He made two others with Chris Petit - Asylum and The Falconer - both of which seem to've vanished without trace after one late-night broadcast on Channel 4. Orbital is worth checking out; I seem to remember Ballard challenging Sinclair to blow up a local shopping centre... Lud Heat is certainly well worth your time, though.

[sovay]

Orbital is worth checking out; I seem to remember Ballard challenging Sinclair to blow up a local shopping centre...

That's excellent. I am entirely unsurprised by the presence of J.G. Ballard in a film by Iain Sinclair.

Lud Heat is certainly well worth your time, though.

I looked for them both in used book stores tonight without success!