Ben Peek's Blog, page 26
April 26, 2012
About Prometheus
In the first minute of this trailer, did you ever think, "Dude, that's what Aliens Vs Predator should have been!"
I did.
I did.
April 25, 2012
And So, It Has Begun
Dear Bill Wright,
We hardly know each other, you and I, but our humble rivalry has made us the best of friends, the worst of enemies.
I speak, of course, of our standing on the ditmar nominations. For years now, I have been second to you, the man with nine ditmar nominations that has never won, vs the man with ten ditmar nominations who has never won. It would make no difference if you or I were a woman. We would be the woman with nine ditmar nominations who never won and the woman with ten ditmar nominations that has never won. Our rivalry is not about gender, no. Nor is our rivalry about quality, or skill, or who has the most friends who shows up at a convention to vote for them. That is for others. Let those who wish to fight on the convention floor do what they must, for we, sir, we are better than that. We are of the rivalry for who can last the longest, who can lay claim to the most nominations without an actual win.
We, sir, are for the noblest of pursuits.
This year, I draw equal to you.
This year, I reach ten nominations.
In accordance with that, I have decided that we can no longer be secret, no longer hide our contest. I hope over the years you have received my mail about this. My postcards made from hasty newspaper type. My packages that leaked. My admiration in the way you pre-empted me by beginning your work on the year I was born, in 1976, is without peer. An early strike for your fine fanzine Interstellar Ramjet Scoop, which then took a lazy tour through the wild before it returned in 1999, and to appear steadily up to 2010. I applaud you, sir, for the work, the dedication that you have shown. Compared to you, I am but a novice, with not yet ten years of ballot life yet. But still, sir, while my respect for you is strong, there must come a time when all those we aspire to must fall. Like Darth Vader killing the Emperor, like William Shatner telling the fans to get a life, like Chuck Norris turning to conservative politics, nothing can remain as it once was, and all must change.
I have no fear that I will be knocked out of our competition by foul play. Through steady work, I have ensured my safety from winning. To ensure it still, I will begin a campaign of comparing various people in the scene to animals that are not considered cute, and I will accuse others of cheating. I will make cookies for others and show the ugly sex photos to those who think I might still be worthy. It is old, old work, for which I can only assume that you are familiar with just as I am. But, such is our lot. We will not be understood, you or I. People will not respect what it is that we do, but we, of the old science fiction guard, of the counter revolutionary forms that emerged in the sixties and seventies, we remember what JG Ballard said when he turned down the Queen's honours:
"The whole thing is a preposterous charade," he said. "Thousands of medals are given out in the name of a non-existent empire."
To you, my most worthy friend and enemy, I salute.
Soon, we shall be equal.
And then, I shall defeat you.
Yours,
Ben Peek.
We hardly know each other, you and I, but our humble rivalry has made us the best of friends, the worst of enemies.
I speak, of course, of our standing on the ditmar nominations. For years now, I have been second to you, the man with nine ditmar nominations that has never won, vs the man with ten ditmar nominations who has never won. It would make no difference if you or I were a woman. We would be the woman with nine ditmar nominations who never won and the woman with ten ditmar nominations that has never won. Our rivalry is not about gender, no. Nor is our rivalry about quality, or skill, or who has the most friends who shows up at a convention to vote for them. That is for others. Let those who wish to fight on the convention floor do what they must, for we, sir, we are better than that. We are of the rivalry for who can last the longest, who can lay claim to the most nominations without an actual win.
We, sir, are for the noblest of pursuits.
This year, I draw equal to you.
This year, I reach ten nominations.
In accordance with that, I have decided that we can no longer be secret, no longer hide our contest. I hope over the years you have received my mail about this. My postcards made from hasty newspaper type. My packages that leaked. My admiration in the way you pre-empted me by beginning your work on the year I was born, in 1976, is without peer. An early strike for your fine fanzine Interstellar Ramjet Scoop, which then took a lazy tour through the wild before it returned in 1999, and to appear steadily up to 2010. I applaud you, sir, for the work, the dedication that you have shown. Compared to you, I am but a novice, with not yet ten years of ballot life yet. But still, sir, while my respect for you is strong, there must come a time when all those we aspire to must fall. Like Darth Vader killing the Emperor, like William Shatner telling the fans to get a life, like Chuck Norris turning to conservative politics, nothing can remain as it once was, and all must change.
I have no fear that I will be knocked out of our competition by foul play. Through steady work, I have ensured my safety from winning. To ensure it still, I will begin a campaign of comparing various people in the scene to animals that are not considered cute, and I will accuse others of cheating. I will make cookies for others and show the ugly sex photos to those who think I might still be worthy. It is old, old work, for which I can only assume that you are familiar with just as I am. But, such is our lot. We will not be understood, you or I. People will not respect what it is that we do, but we, of the old science fiction guard, of the counter revolutionary forms that emerged in the sixties and seventies, we remember what JG Ballard said when he turned down the Queen's honours:
"The whole thing is a preposterous charade," he said. "Thousands of medals are given out in the name of a non-existent empire."
To you, my most worthy friend and enemy, I salute.
Soon, we shall be equal.
And then, I shall defeat you.
Yours,
Ben Peek.
April 23, 2012
The Gentle Reminder
[image error]
Link.
Rookwood cemetery (formally, a necropolis) is the largest cemetery in the Southern hemisphere- and conveniently located in Lidcombe. It’s overseen by a tangle of faith representatives, and includes victoriana gardens, modern burial grounds and a cremation area. More interesting to me, though, are the older areas of the cemetery slowly being reclaimed by native plants and creatures: a gentle reminder we are lucky to be remembered well in this life, much less the next.
Link.
April 22, 2012
The Trio of Hands
The Trio of Hands is apparently the name of a seminal book about Rock, Paper, Scissor.
Written by Wojek Smallsoa,who died in 2010, The Trio of Hands is the subject of what appears to be an entirely fabricated book--one that sounds both amazing and life changing, as only such a book can be--and the people who have seen it describe as such:
No need to thank me for today's moment of beautiful.
Written by Wojek Smallsoa,who died in 2010, The Trio of Hands is the subject of what appears to be an entirely fabricated book--one that sounds both amazing and life changing, as only such a book can be--and the people who have seen it describe as such:
Indeed, The Trio of Hands does exist, and it is a delightful tome of RPS wisdom. It is remarkably hard to come by, however. A brief history: Wojek Smallsoa had already attained a level of greatness by the late 50's. It is difficult for us to realize now just how groundbreaking his style of play was at the time. It was suggested that he organize his thoughts on the subject for an introduction to the World Championships of 1959. His notes ran to over 100 scribbled pages, out of which he selected a few paragraphs for the opening remarks at the Tournament. This, then, was the first time any part of Trio was in print (this is now subsumed under the section entitled "The Price of Success") Joseppe DiScaglia, the editor of Mondo di RPS at the time, suggested that Smallsoa compile some of his notes for serialization. A total of six sections were created for Mondo from late 1959-1960. These were not in their final forms as appear in Trio, but were summaries of the "meat" of Trio, the main strategic sections. These are:
Before the Prime
Proper Priming
The Throw,
Strategic Assessment
Constructing a Game Plan
Lest the newcomer think otherwise, even the sections in Trio are more poetic descriptions than an exhaustive study, which would have made the slim tome into a several volume edition.
No need to thank me for today's moment of beautiful.
April 20, 2012
The Clock and Other Thoughts
N. and I went out to the Museum of Contemporary Art today to see the new exhibition on time there, which includes Christian Marclay's the Clock, a twenty four hour collage film that has sampled hundreds of film to create this complex vision of time.
It's superb, really, well worth the trip to see for itself. The collage follows real time and samples an endless amount of films to constantly refer to that time. N. and I watched close to half an hour of it, and I could have honestly stayed for the entire thing, except that there was a line out there, and I'd gotten it. It's a pretty simple concept, but it's the execution, the sheer insanity of constructing the whole twenty four hours that really makes it. So once it hit three in the film (and three outside), we left, giving up our seats for someone else. We checked out the rest of the exhibition, which is also on time, and there was some cool stuff there. I particularly enjoyed the installation that chronicled the last twenty-four hours in the life of the artist's brother, though I have forgotten the artist, and goggle won't give it to me easy.
Afterward, it got me thinking, not on time, per se, or anything like that, but on the nature of art. Lately, I've been putting a lot of thought and time into commercial art, as I would like to make some more money, a dirty thing, no doubt. But, y'know, life, and such. It has demands. Commercial art doesn't have to be bad, or poorly thought out--but at the same time, it has to have a certain appeal, and it's not too difficult to go off into work that has no mass appeal at all; that you can go off into work that is difficult, obscure, and which aims to alienate an audience. On any given day, my mind is usually working on three to four ideas, tossing around various concepts to success and failure, but I've been purposefully thinking of the more commercial ones of late, neglecting the more artistic ones.
I was reminded, I guess, of the need for balance in art. I think it's very often lost when artists talk--possibly because they're all so busy trying to get a break, to become successful, in the many ways you can be, that the individual artistic desire can be lost. You don't often hear, for example, of an author talking about creating something knowing that it will have a limited audience, and that they're okay with that. You don't hear of publishers saying that, either. But still, it's important to do that at times, to sit up and say, yeah, I created this because it spoke to me in a multiple ways and I know it's kind of difficult and obscure and that a lot of people won't dig it. It's just as important as creating something that a lot of people like, that brings a lot of pleasure to an audience, in the many ways that it can exist.
Anyhow, such was my vague thought, and this idea that I need to nurture both parts of my art, and my desires, both worldly and intellectually.
It's superb, really, well worth the trip to see for itself. The collage follows real time and samples an endless amount of films to constantly refer to that time. N. and I watched close to half an hour of it, and I could have honestly stayed for the entire thing, except that there was a line out there, and I'd gotten it. It's a pretty simple concept, but it's the execution, the sheer insanity of constructing the whole twenty four hours that really makes it. So once it hit three in the film (and three outside), we left, giving up our seats for someone else. We checked out the rest of the exhibition, which is also on time, and there was some cool stuff there. I particularly enjoyed the installation that chronicled the last twenty-four hours in the life of the artist's brother, though I have forgotten the artist, and goggle won't give it to me easy.
Afterward, it got me thinking, not on time, per se, or anything like that, but on the nature of art. Lately, I've been putting a lot of thought and time into commercial art, as I would like to make some more money, a dirty thing, no doubt. But, y'know, life, and such. It has demands. Commercial art doesn't have to be bad, or poorly thought out--but at the same time, it has to have a certain appeal, and it's not too difficult to go off into work that has no mass appeal at all; that you can go off into work that is difficult, obscure, and which aims to alienate an audience. On any given day, my mind is usually working on three to four ideas, tossing around various concepts to success and failure, but I've been purposefully thinking of the more commercial ones of late, neglecting the more artistic ones.
I was reminded, I guess, of the need for balance in art. I think it's very often lost when artists talk--possibly because they're all so busy trying to get a break, to become successful, in the many ways you can be, that the individual artistic desire can be lost. You don't often hear, for example, of an author talking about creating something knowing that it will have a limited audience, and that they're okay with that. You don't hear of publishers saying that, either. But still, it's important to do that at times, to sit up and say, yeah, I created this because it spoke to me in a multiple ways and I know it's kind of difficult and obscure and that a lot of people won't dig it. It's just as important as creating something that a lot of people like, that brings a lot of pleasure to an audience, in the many ways that it can exist.
Anyhow, such was my vague thought, and this idea that I need to nurture both parts of my art, and my desires, both worldly and intellectually.
April 18, 2012
The Weird, Deceptive Life of American Comics
The American comic industry is a strange one.
I don't know a lot about it from an insider's point of view, but from an outsider, man, its fucking weird.
It has this really quite insane and long history of creators being treated badly, the most famous, perhaps, being Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman. It wasn't until 1975, and after a negative campaign based on the fact that they were broke, that the creators were, after thirty years, again acknowledged for their work. They had signed the rights away, possibly because they did not know better, but I'm not sure, and that was that despite their attempts to get it back--a legal fight that continues still, with Warner Bros claiming a recent victory.
And if you think that's cold, then what about Marvel's legal battle with the creator of Ghost Rider, Gary Friedrich, and their victory that he could no longer call himself the creator of Ghost Rider, and that he could only sign items that had been endorsed by Marvel. Apparently broke, Marvel even went one step further, and asked for seventeen thousand dollars. Friedrich's crime, it seems, had been to sue Marvel, saying the rights of his character had reverted to him...
And more recently, there's Alan Moore and Before Watchmen. There, after years of telling people publicly that both he and Dave Gibbons--the illustrator of Watchmen--had been lied to and deceived and that he had lost the rights of his creation, his statement that he thought DC cashing in on the graphic novel by making prequels with a host of creators both good and bad, has a mix of reactions. A lot of people even called Moore a hypocrite, because of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in which he took well known literary characters (most, if not all, public domain) for his and Kevin O'Neill's series. The original story of being mistreated by the publisher, of essentially losing the rights and control of their work, seems to have been entirely lost by the audience, as this piece in Forbes will attest.
The worse part is, this is not even the beginning or the end of the situations like this, and it doesn't even really put a dent in all these creations. They're products that people grab at greedily for more, never questioning the ways in which they were created, or what happened to the creators.
I don't know a lot about it from an insider's point of view, but from an outsider, man, its fucking weird.
It has this really quite insane and long history of creators being treated badly, the most famous, perhaps, being Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman. It wasn't until 1975, and after a negative campaign based on the fact that they were broke, that the creators were, after thirty years, again acknowledged for their work. They had signed the rights away, possibly because they did not know better, but I'm not sure, and that was that despite their attempts to get it back--a legal fight that continues still, with Warner Bros claiming a recent victory.
And if you think that's cold, then what about Marvel's legal battle with the creator of Ghost Rider, Gary Friedrich, and their victory that he could no longer call himself the creator of Ghost Rider, and that he could only sign items that had been endorsed by Marvel. Apparently broke, Marvel even went one step further, and asked for seventeen thousand dollars. Friedrich's crime, it seems, had been to sue Marvel, saying the rights of his character had reverted to him...
And more recently, there's Alan Moore and Before Watchmen. There, after years of telling people publicly that both he and Dave Gibbons--the illustrator of Watchmen--had been lied to and deceived and that he had lost the rights of his creation, his statement that he thought DC cashing in on the graphic novel by making prequels with a host of creators both good and bad, has a mix of reactions. A lot of people even called Moore a hypocrite, because of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in which he took well known literary characters (most, if not all, public domain) for his and Kevin O'Neill's series. The original story of being mistreated by the publisher, of essentially losing the rights and control of their work, seems to have been entirely lost by the audience, as this piece in Forbes will attest.
The worse part is, this is not even the beginning or the end of the situations like this, and it doesn't even really put a dent in all these creations. They're products that people grab at greedily for more, never questioning the ways in which they were created, or what happened to the creators.
April 16, 2012
April 15, 2012
Once You Read It, You Could Not Unread It
I finished George RR Martin's A Dance With Dragons. All eleven hundred pages.
The complaints against the series--that there's too many characters, that Martin has lost control of his work, that it doesn't know where it is going anymore--are here. It takes around nine hundred pages to reach a series of climaxes and all of those are cliffhangers. After such a long book, I reckon you got a right to feel a bit ripped off when that happens, but your mileage may vary. I wasn't too bothered by it, myself. Also, if the books weren't total soap opera before, they are now (but lets be honest, they were before). Still, I enjoyed it enough: it's nice trash reading, something to sit round with for a bit of fun, kind of like watching b-grade martial art flicks and bad horror. Switch your mind off, flow with it, and then later just move on to something a little more intellectually stimulating.
I don't want it to sound like I'm hassling the book for being that, because I'm not. There should be a variety of books out there. Novels that make you think, novels that are difficult and require work, novels that are comforting, and novels that are just trashy fun. I sometimes think that we're all trying to make our pleasures out to be important literature to justify the time we spend with it, but really, they're just a pleasure, and pleasure is why you spend your time with something. That pleasure can be found in a variety of forms isn't something to be concerned with, but rather celebrated.
Anyhow, I did enjoy it. I especially enjoyed how Martin structured his chapters. It is something that he has done fairly well throughout the series (at least to my mind--I read those other books something like five, six years ago, and the memory might not be so good), but it works well in A Dance With Dragons. Each chapter has a very complete sense to it, in many ways mirroring the structure of a short story, often using an emotional point as the starting point of the character, and working towards the resolution of that within the chapter. In almost complete opposition to the novel as a whole, the chapters have a neatness to them, a sense of completeness, which offsets the fact that plots rise and fall without resolution as Martin seems fit. It was actually fairly pleasing to read the individual chapters to just see how Martin constructed them and allowed them to follow each other. It made me wonder, in some places, if Martin doesn't just write a certain arc out completely first--seven chapters for Jon, for example, two for Bran, five for Davos--and then once he has the ten or so characters that he plans to use in the novel done, he begins to rearrange the chapters, breaking it up, and structuring the novel as a whole then. It'd be an interesting way to write it, I think, though I am sure that it would cause a certain amount of problems when you were coming to the climax.
Ah well. In a couple of years, there'll be another book, and I'll read it, enjoy the opera, then move on.
The complaints against the series--that there's too many characters, that Martin has lost control of his work, that it doesn't know where it is going anymore--are here. It takes around nine hundred pages to reach a series of climaxes and all of those are cliffhangers. After such a long book, I reckon you got a right to feel a bit ripped off when that happens, but your mileage may vary. I wasn't too bothered by it, myself. Also, if the books weren't total soap opera before, they are now (but lets be honest, they were before). Still, I enjoyed it enough: it's nice trash reading, something to sit round with for a bit of fun, kind of like watching b-grade martial art flicks and bad horror. Switch your mind off, flow with it, and then later just move on to something a little more intellectually stimulating.
I don't want it to sound like I'm hassling the book for being that, because I'm not. There should be a variety of books out there. Novels that make you think, novels that are difficult and require work, novels that are comforting, and novels that are just trashy fun. I sometimes think that we're all trying to make our pleasures out to be important literature to justify the time we spend with it, but really, they're just a pleasure, and pleasure is why you spend your time with something. That pleasure can be found in a variety of forms isn't something to be concerned with, but rather celebrated.
Anyhow, I did enjoy it. I especially enjoyed how Martin structured his chapters. It is something that he has done fairly well throughout the series (at least to my mind--I read those other books something like five, six years ago, and the memory might not be so good), but it works well in A Dance With Dragons. Each chapter has a very complete sense to it, in many ways mirroring the structure of a short story, often using an emotional point as the starting point of the character, and working towards the resolution of that within the chapter. In almost complete opposition to the novel as a whole, the chapters have a neatness to them, a sense of completeness, which offsets the fact that plots rise and fall without resolution as Martin seems fit. It was actually fairly pleasing to read the individual chapters to just see how Martin constructed them and allowed them to follow each other. It made me wonder, in some places, if Martin doesn't just write a certain arc out completely first--seven chapters for Jon, for example, two for Bran, five for Davos--and then once he has the ten or so characters that he plans to use in the novel done, he begins to rearrange the chapters, breaking it up, and structuring the novel as a whole then. It'd be an interesting way to write it, I think, though I am sure that it would cause a certain amount of problems when you were coming to the climax.
Ah well. In a couple of years, there'll be another book, and I'll read it, enjoy the opera, then move on.
April 12, 2012
Without the Rats
Today's publishing news is that the US is suing Apple and the big publishers for price fixing in relation to ebooks.
On the surface, it appears to be a fairly simple situation, especially given that three of the publishers settled early. Macmillan's statement that it could allow Amazon to take a monopoly position probably does have a scent of truth to it, but that's a different battle, really. Justifying one action--price fixing--because of another bad market place situation doesn't really help your defense, I would think, since the question of an online monopoly is a different battle to be fought. Also, without knowing off the top of my head just how much Amazon dominates the online market, or in this case, the ebook market, I cannot judge if the claim is a fair one.
Lately, N. and I have been talking about the state of Australian consumerism. She's been faintly horrified by the dominance of retail organisations in Australia, pointing out to me that, in the local stores, there's a hugely limited choice of brands you can buy. Not items, that's fine, but there's no real competition on, say, honey mustard. Why aren't there two? Or three? I have no idea. There's not, though, and the supermarkets--to continue with my example--are pretty much dominated by two companies. There's not a whole lot of choice where you go, what you buy once you're there, or how much you pay. There are lots of examples of it, really. When I worked as a projectionist, I watched Village and Hoyts divide up two states, leaving Hoyts in NSW and Village in Victoria. Each company owns half their stocks in each other, and have a pretty sold stake in Greater Union as well, which results in dominance of the market. While I was working there, it was not uncommon to hear stories of how they straggled out new competition, stopped new cinema chains from opening, and so forth. There's lots of other examples, as well, when you start looking around: Australia is the land of the monopoly, of the conservative business model that allows CEOs to run around with funny hats and laugh and throw money into the air and dance naked beneath it.
Mostly, though, I never gave much thought about all this. It's Australia. I pretty much took it as it is, and didn't stress it overly because it has kind of always been that way. But since N. has moved in, it has been one of those things I've noticed, one of the things that has struck me as something a bit uncool, and something I oughtn't support so blissfully and ignorantly. What can I say? Girl moves in, boy begins to notice things. I'm sure you're all shocked.
In related news, the chilli tree we're growing has chillis on it. I pulled one off last night and used it in dinner.
On the surface, it appears to be a fairly simple situation, especially given that three of the publishers settled early. Macmillan's statement that it could allow Amazon to take a monopoly position probably does have a scent of truth to it, but that's a different battle, really. Justifying one action--price fixing--because of another bad market place situation doesn't really help your defense, I would think, since the question of an online monopoly is a different battle to be fought. Also, without knowing off the top of my head just how much Amazon dominates the online market, or in this case, the ebook market, I cannot judge if the claim is a fair one.
Lately, N. and I have been talking about the state of Australian consumerism. She's been faintly horrified by the dominance of retail organisations in Australia, pointing out to me that, in the local stores, there's a hugely limited choice of brands you can buy. Not items, that's fine, but there's no real competition on, say, honey mustard. Why aren't there two? Or three? I have no idea. There's not, though, and the supermarkets--to continue with my example--are pretty much dominated by two companies. There's not a whole lot of choice where you go, what you buy once you're there, or how much you pay. There are lots of examples of it, really. When I worked as a projectionist, I watched Village and Hoyts divide up two states, leaving Hoyts in NSW and Village in Victoria. Each company owns half their stocks in each other, and have a pretty sold stake in Greater Union as well, which results in dominance of the market. While I was working there, it was not uncommon to hear stories of how they straggled out new competition, stopped new cinema chains from opening, and so forth. There's lots of other examples, as well, when you start looking around: Australia is the land of the monopoly, of the conservative business model that allows CEOs to run around with funny hats and laugh and throw money into the air and dance naked beneath it.
Mostly, though, I never gave much thought about all this. It's Australia. I pretty much took it as it is, and didn't stress it overly because it has kind of always been that way. But since N. has moved in, it has been one of those things I've noticed, one of the things that has struck me as something a bit uncool, and something I oughtn't support so blissfully and ignorantly. What can I say? Girl moves in, boy begins to notice things. I'm sure you're all shocked.
In related news, the chilli tree we're growing has chillis on it. I pulled one off last night and used it in dinner.
April 11, 2012
Is It Over?
It has been a long, long week.
Today, I should hear if my car is worth repairing, or not. That should tell you the kind of week I had.
I did enjoy hating on everything, though. I enjoy finding things and picking them apart, like books and films and tv shows. It's not for everyone, but the enjoyment of seeing how things fail can be a sweet one. Sometimes, though, I'm just mean spirited. Yesterday I saw a bit of Ellen and thought that, really, Ellen Degeneres looks more and more like the comic book illustrations of the Joker, androgynous and long in the face, and with a smile that hints of insanity. Why not? On her show she had these two kids who were 'talented' and then followed with a super model who looked like a taller version of these kids, without curves in any fashion. All the things they talked about were shit stain stupid. Black and white morals, a child's view of the world. You couldn't really tell when she stopped talking to the children if you closed your eyes. Sometimes I have that experience everywhere I go.
April is going to be busy and perhaps heart breaking, but after a week, I'm back writing, at least.
Today, I should hear if my car is worth repairing, or not. That should tell you the kind of week I had.
I did enjoy hating on everything, though. I enjoy finding things and picking them apart, like books and films and tv shows. It's not for everyone, but the enjoyment of seeing how things fail can be a sweet one. Sometimes, though, I'm just mean spirited. Yesterday I saw a bit of Ellen and thought that, really, Ellen Degeneres looks more and more like the comic book illustrations of the Joker, androgynous and long in the face, and with a smile that hints of insanity. Why not? On her show she had these two kids who were 'talented' and then followed with a super model who looked like a taller version of these kids, without curves in any fashion. All the things they talked about were shit stain stupid. Black and white morals, a child's view of the world. You couldn't really tell when she stopped talking to the children if you closed your eyes. Sometimes I have that experience everywhere I go.
April is going to be busy and perhaps heart breaking, but after a week, I'm back writing, at least.
