Spillt Ink

A series upon shoes:

Ruby slippers
Farm boots
Mary Anne's
Clumpy heels
Bedroom slippers
Chucks

Phrases:

"Your courage comes from a bottle."  (Idea behind.)

"Passionate, pathetic, filled with apathy."

"Ineffable and undefinable."

"There was a mantra in there something.  Wait a moment and I'll find it."

Somewhere in my reading last week, (I thought it was in Weird Tales, but when I went back and looked for it, no, it wasn't where I thought it'd been) I read death ends love.   For when one is dead, they no longer have the ability to love, to love anyone or anything.

• Paper dragons (and shadow puppets)

• "My best friend is a brick wall.  Sometimes, at night, I sit beside him and read him stories in French.  The stories are always fairy tales and they always end sadly for the children."

• The carnival story with the fortune teller should hold detail in the tent canvas and the seer isn't the psychic.  The visions are of a man with substance abuse problems.  (See its twofold again!)

• Jungle foliage.  The name of plants, the amount of sun and shade, poisonous, and the creatures within.

 Not so long ago, JVM had a post about how ocs characters are flawed characters.  Crazy.  Insane.

Today, Jonathan Carroll had a post quoting Steve Almond about how writing is about obcessed characters and that is what is important.   It isn't bad.  It is necessary.

After reading "Retrospect" by Miller in Feb's F&SF, thoughts.

There's always a cabal, a group of usually all men, usually all of a mature age, gathering together in a back room or a living room or a deserted library, discussing whatever it is that is related to the story.  Maybe smoking, pipes or cigars, maybe drinking something from heavy glassware or heavy coffee cups, an elite community and where are the women?  Maybe they're in a bookclub, or they're composed of shoppers, gathering together for lunch, or dinner, their makeup perfect, their purchases clustered like small animals at their feet, their voices animated, their expressions quick, fleeting, except for one, there is always one, maybe the same one every time, the one with the problem, the problems, and the problem/s are always socially related; a boss, a lover , her mother/father/demanding-dependent-sibling.  Nothing about about the nature of the universe, although it is the universe on a macro scale, but nothing about ghosts or ghost stories (unless you count the ex-lovers, the deceased parents), nothing about the changing world or changing the world to change the situation.  And, maybe, maybe, maybe there should be.  

*note that with Miller's cabal there is a woman within the predominately male group.

I

I believed I was a good listener,
but being a quiet person
didn't mean I listened well.

II

He stood aside within the room,
never taking his eyes away from her,
as she occupied herself with activities
and conversations;
he stood watching her,
focused and silent.

III

I spoke at length;
I spoke quickly,
gesturing, embellishing,
whining, pleading, appealing.

He listened without comment.

Before I concluded,
before I had finished my tirade,
his silence
brought me to my senses.