I'd like to say that the Red Line got lost, that it wasn't me

[sovay]

The trouble is that I am tired and in pain and still sick and not making it to things I had planned because of exhaustion and the same story of mine has been rejected twice in the same week and the combination makes me feel as always that I am of no use to anyone and merely boring people with whatever I care about; I am not saying this is an accurate reading of the facts, but I am saying I would really like not to wake up from nightmares into pain for a couple of nights, I think it could be fun.

I did rent and watch Fritz Lang's Clash by Night (1952) because of Alfred Hayes; I cannot in good conscience claim it for women in noir even though it was produced by Harriet Parsons because I don't think it is noir as opposed to an emotionally twisty romance-drama photographed by Nicholas Musuraca with his customary rich (and noir-defining) shadows, but I may try to write about it anyway. Barbara Stanwyck is complicated, bruised, and clever in ways that are usually not given to heroines, Robert Ryan makes a compelling bad romance, and the postwar Monterey setting is pure Cannery Row. Marilyn Monroe's supporting part was her first top billing and even if the script eventually falls out from under her character, she's wonderful. I wish Catholic interests had not prevailed upon Lang to delete the scenes of the Blessing of the Fleet.

I spent yesterday afternoon with my father at the MFA. It turns out that M. C. Escher looks very different in person than he does in the secondhand forms I've encountered my whole life long; his tessellations and impossible geometries are clever when reproduced on posters or placemats, but as lithographs or line drawings, textured and incredibly precise up close, they're beautiful. Metamorphosis II (1939–40) is huge when you see it on a wall. I still love best the moment when the red-tiled roofs of Atrani set one slender bridge out into the sea where rings widen around the foot of a rook, chess-squares darkening under the water as the world beyond the edges of the board fades away. I can't describe it without using the language of time and motion, transformation. This exhibition also made it clear to me what an influence Escher must have been on Chris Van Allsburg. There are images in that gallery that could have come straight from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (1984). I was also struck by the work of Anselm Kiefer in the exhibit of German woodcuts: 70s into 80s, especially the worked-over photograph Siegfried Forgets Brünhilde (1975–80). I need to go back and spend more time in Daily Life in Ancient Greece.

The most useful things I did today were grocery shopping, cleaning the refrigerator, and establishing that I will be able to participate in a podcast tomorrow with the archaic computer I have, but those were pretty useful. Tomorrow I will be able to cook rather than just make a sandwich, also talk to people in other time zones and open the crisper without needing to reach for a flamethrower.

When I am less dead and more up for travel, I want to see the Jayne County retrospective at Participant Inc.

Comments

[yhlee]

*support support*

I would like to see Escher in person someday. I really love "Hands Drawing Hands" (?) especially.

[sovay]

I would like to see Escher in person someday. I really love "Hands Drawing Hands" (?) especially.

If you visit Boston before May 28, you can see Drawing Hands in person! Also a preliminary sketch and a draft version. (It's a great exhibit.)

[yhlee]

There's no way I can make it, unfortunately; between writing commitments, the fact that I'm already going to ConDFW this month (Dallas-Ft. Worth), traveling to Hong Kong in March (on someone else's dime), and traveling to NYC in April (again, on someone else's dime), I'm going to be too burnt out. Also we are going to Gencon this year (August, but it's a very spendy con) so spending on another random trip would not be great of me. I will dream of seeing it some other time in another place!

[sovay]

There's no way I can make it, unfortunately

Well, then I hope the exhibition travels to be near you!

Enjoy New York in April.

[kore]

*sighs from the other end of the continent where it's hard not to feel shortchanged sometimes*

[sovay]

*sighs from the other end of the continent where it's hard not to feel shortchanged sometimes*

Your side of the continent has Powell's!

[kore]

Yeah. I can't go there either although at least that's more for personal reasons (broke, severe depression, agoraphobia, no car....I guess we could try for a round-trip train route, although that would probably be impossible without staying one night in a hotel, which we haven't done for IDK how long).

Seattle does have the new tourist-friendly Elliott Bay Bookstore which moved from downtown to my neighbourhood, awesome! ....and they also quit selling used books, started charging for event/booksignings and lobbied against the minimum wage being raised to $15, along with the literary editor of the local rag. \o/

[kindkit]

Well, for what it's worth, I always read your posts with great interest. Don't always comment, because I don't always have anything to say, but I definitely like reading your thoughts on films etc.

[sovay]

Don't always comment, because I don't always have anything to say, but I definitely like reading your thoughts on films etc.

Thank you. That's worth a lot.

[thisbluespirit]

but I am saying I would really like not to wake up from nightmares into pain for a couple of nights, I think it could be fun.

Aww, I am sorry. I hope that happens asap. <3

Seeing the Escher close up sounds very cool, though! (And, no, you're definitely not boring at all, but I know that doesn't necessarily help when you feel that way. I am frequently very boring. I bore myself; other people can have nothing to say about it!)

[sovay]

Aww, I am sorry. I hope that happens asap.

Thank you.

Seeing the Escher close up sounds very cool, though!

It was great! I'm planning to go back with spatch.

(And, no, you're definitely not boring at all, but I know that doesn't necessarily help when you feel that way. I am frequently very boring. I bore myself; other people can have nothing to say about it!)

I understand it's complicated: I'm not bored by your posts. I appreciate it.

[thisbluespirit]

I spend all day in my house with me; I am very boring, I assure you! If we had a boring contest, I would win it. You would win in other undesirable things, though, because pain is a trump card. But I wish you to lose it from your deck as soon as you may. ;-)



(I may also be a more than a tad silly, but I am v sympathetic really! <3)

[thawrecka]

When I'm tired and ill I always feel alone and un-liked in the universe. I hope you get some good quality rest, soon!

[sovay]

When I'm tired and ill I always feel alone and un-liked in the universe. I hope you get some good quality rest, soon!

Thank you!

[cyphomandra]

I hope your dreams improve and pain subsides.

I love Escher’s work. When I was small our local library would lend out prints for three weeks at a time, and my favourites were always Escher ones, which I would hang on my wall and stare at, mesmerised. On my first trip to Japan I went to Huis ten Bosch, the model Dutch village, and discovered their Escher collection and a room with an3D movie experience, which was not quite as good as ending up in Labyrinth or the Doctor Who Castrovalva episode, but still pretty neat. I’ve also seen a few of Anselm Kiefer’s paintings and found their physicality fascinating. (and I love Harris Burdick!)

[sovay]

I hope your dreams improve and pain subsides.

Thank you.

When I was small our local library would lend out prints for three weeks at a time

Oh, nice. I don't know if I've encountered that practice before, but I like it.

On my first trip to Japan I went to Huis ten Bosch, the model Dutch village, and discovered their Escher collection and a room with an3D movie experience, which was not quite as good as ending up in Labyrinth or the Doctor Who Castrovalva episode, but still pretty neat.

That does sound pretty cool. (I feel that visiting Japan and ending up in Labyrinth would not be all that surprising, actually. Jareth's hair always looked straight out of manga.)

I’ve also seen a few of Anselm Kiefer’s paintings and found their physicality fascinating. (and I love Harris Burdick!)

I wish I could offer you a teleporter! Everybody I know needs one.

[strange_complex]

Sorry to hear you are feeling crap. I hope it goes away and lets you feel better about yourself and do all the things you really want to do very soon.

Thanks meanwhile for reporting on the Escher exhibition. I don't think I've ever seen any of his stuff IRL, but I did spend absolutely HOURS poring over books of his work as a child, fascinated by the worlds he was showing us.

[sovay]

Sorry to hear you are feeling crap. I hope it goes away and lets you feel better about yourself and do all the things you really want to do very soon.

Thank you. This afternoon not having worked out, I think I'm going to see what I can do no matter what.

Thanks meanwhile for reporting on the Escher exhibition. I don't think I've ever seen any of his stuff IRL, but I did spend absolutely HOURS poring over books of his work as a child, fascinated by the worlds he was showing us.

You're welcome! He's one of the artists I cannot remember encountering for the first time; his art was always somewhere in the house or the books I was reading or the Museum of Science. I hope you get the chance to see it in person sometime.

[strange_complex]

This afternoon not having worked out, I think I'm going to see what I can do no matter what.

*nods* I hear ya. Sometimes you just have to apply bloody-minded determination to these things. Good luck with it!

[ashlyme]

I hope you get better soon. I have never found you boring. *hugs*

Escher was the first artist I really imprinted on. Seeing that work up close must have been a trip. I'll see if I can find a copy of Harris Burdick.

Enjoy Jayne County when you can go!

[sovay]

I hope you get better soon. I have never found you boring.

Thank you.

*hugs*

Escher was the first artist I really imprinted on. Seeing that work up close must have been a trip.

Some of the pieces are much larger than I would have thought, some quite small, all minutely detailed. And way ahead of their time, which I had somehow never realized: he was making prints in the 1940's that look like psychedelica.

I'll see if I can find a copy of Harris Burdick.

If you have not read it, I think you'll really like it. The conceit is that each illustration comes from a different story, with only the title and a single caption to suggest what that story might be, but the cumulative effect is a Tarot-like shuffle through all sorts of different genres and moods and sometimes funny, sometimes disturbing, always weird images, like channel-surfing in the Twilight Zone. You're intended to make up your own stories while or after reading. (This has even resulted in professionally published stories—with Van Allsburg's permission, I assume, Stephen King famously included a Harris Burdick story in Nightmares and Dreamscapes.) I recently gave my niece a copy and I hope she's enjoying it.

Enjoy Jayne County when you can go!

Thank you! If the museum permits, I'll try to bring back pictures.

[moon_custafer]

Your posts are the opposite of boring.

Andrew has had to cancel Art Gallery plans due to pain for the second weekend in a row, so I feel you on the wishing-bodies-would-cooperate front.

[sovay]

Your posts are the opposite of boring.

Thank you.

Andrew has had to cancel Art Gallery plans due to pain for the second weekend in a row, so I feel you on the wishing-bodies-would-cooperate front.

Oh, bah. I'm sorry to hear that. Sympathies in return.

[redbird]

To weigh against the illusion that you are of no use to anyone: ten minutes ago I didn't know there was an Escher exhibit at the MFA, and now I'm going to mention it to cattitude when he wakes up, so we can plan a visit. (While I haven't yet been to the MFA, he's a member.)

[sovay]

To weigh against the illusion that you are of no use to anyone: ten minutes ago I didn't know there was an Escher exhibit at the MFA, and now I'm going to mention it tocattitude when he wakes up, so we can plan a visit.

Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful time. I am very fond of the MFA.

[landofnowhere]

I didn't know the Escher exhibit was a thing, and now I want to see it! Thanks so much!

[sovay]

I didn't know the Escher exhibit was a thing, and now I want to see it! Thanks so much!

You're welcome! It's the first-ever Escher exhibit in Boston. I'm glad at least we're getting around to it now.

[sporky_rat]

I got to see an Escher when I was quite small and it has stuck with me for many, many years.
My step grandmother took us to see it when it came near here because well, it was an Escher, why wouldn't you take a gaggle of small children to see an Escher? (We were all under ten, by the way. Cameron was a brave woman.)
Something about the magic of Escher had us spellbound.

[sovay]

My step grandmother took us to see it when it came near here because well, it was an Escher, why wouldn't you take a gaggle of small children to see an Escher? (We were all under ten, by the way. Cameron was a brave woman.)

That's wonderful. I'm so glad she did that.

Something about the magic of Escher had us spellbound.

I can understand. Which one was it?

[sporky_rat]

I was the oldest at seven and I cannot remember. It was red.

[sporky_rat]

We stared at it for hours, though, until she finally had to drag us away because the museum was closing.

[jesse_the_k]

I had the good fortune to see an Escher display and I had exactly the experience you described. How could the work be more detailed than the reproductions?

I hope you feel better soon. Do you happen to know of a good Escher biography?

[kore]

The same thing happens with van Gogh. Reproductions really flatten him out.

[sovay]

I hope you feel better soon.

Thank you. I wrote some fic for a friend and watched a movie, which I would like to write about.

Do you happen to know of a good Escher biography?

I don't, I'm afraid! I know almost nothing about him as a person, although I like Mike Allen's "Escher's Bed."

[dhampyresa]

*hugs*

I think you're very interesting.

[sovay]

I think you're very interesting.

Thank you.

*hugs*