Midori Snyder's Blog, page 23

May Morris' Lecture Notes

How wonderful is this -- a page of lecture notes from textile artist May Morris, showing it can never be just about the words, but the shapes of leaves and flowers. (Favorite bit--"Darning as a type of Drawing stitches" -- even the menial transcends its humble function in the hands of a masterful needlewoman.)

More Bordertown Moments: Sara, Bogans, & Khandroma

I have uploaded the novella "Alison Gross" into a new, forthcoming section of the website that will be devoted to my Bordertown novellas and short-story-scraps. Part of the fun working on this is discovering that the universe can see into my mind and sends me images that are out of the novellas. 

"Thursday night. Sara took a deep drag off her cigarette and then laid it down on the edge of a tin ashtray. She held the smoke in her throat, let it settle in her chest, and then exhaled slowly through her nose. Wreathed in blue smoke, she closed her eyes, relishing the heavy smell and pleasant burn of tobacco. She opened her eyes again and leaned into the mirror to finish her makeup. Her brown eyes appeared larger from the generous amounts of kohl drawn on the lids, and black mascara stretched the lashes impossibly long and stiff. The full lips were painted a bright coral that stood out against her olive skin. Fairy dust brushed on her cheeks and forehead shimmered as she tossed back long black curly hair...."

 

 "Outside the Dancing Ferret a small crowd of skaters occupied a corner of the street, skateboards flying off the curb and up the wall of the club as riders practiced free-styling. Bogans, dressed alike in loose black pants, and suspenders crisscrossed over dyed undershirts, were fighting with Khandromas for wall space. Bad Boy tried out a new move. Slamming his board high against the wall of the Ferret, he jumped up to meet it and then rode it down at a ninety-degree angle to the street. 

"That's sick, man!" shouted Bonehead appreciatively, and pushed his porkpie hat farther back from his skinny face."

"Hah! Standing still!" retorted Tina. "Dig this, Khandroma-style," and she nodded to Sweetie and B-Good at her side. Tina was dressed all in red. Even her shaggy mohawk was dyed red to match the crimson jacket she wore. At her side Sweetie's colors were blue, from the turquoise hightops to her cobalt-spiked hair. B-Good wore emerald green shorts, and a zigzag of green painted across her face. In unison they attacked the wall, using their feet to push their skateboard up the wall while they braced their hands on the ground in a handstand. Legs up high on the wall, they swiveled their hips and feet, twisting the skateboards and driving them downward again. As the wheels connected with the street, their hands pushed off the ground and righted themselves, crouched over their skateboards. They straightened up smiling as they coasted away from the wall."

*Some of the skaters pictured here are well known. I am trying to get all the names --but for now, second from the top of the skaters is Mark Gonzales (AKA Gonz), and first among the Khandroma is Lacy Banks.

From the Archives: Bordertown Boards and Skulls

When I discovered brilliant Brazilian graphic artist Beto Janz, all I could think of was how easily I could see his recent creation -- colorful skulls made from broken skateboard decks -- exsisting in the Bordertown anthologies. Edgy, beautiful, and creepy, the deck skulls showed up mysteriously in various locations all over the town of Curibita, Brazil, marked with the icon for the local skate shop Ultra Series. People were invited to take them home if they wanted. The whole project was a very savvy form of street advertising for Ultra Series --  and seemed like such a Bordertown way of doing business. I had no trouble seeing Trasher and Deki (in the story "Alison Gross" ) embarking on just such an endeavour to raise money for The Ramp.

 

A Forest Sweater for a Mountain Girl

On a recent trip to Colorado, I purchased at one of my favorite yarn shops, Gypsy Wools, three beautiful skeins of Malabrigo Rios yarn in Hojas colorway. The photo is a bit lighter than the actual color, but it is such a lovely blend of earth/sky/forest colors. I am in the process of turning into a new sweater for my two and a half year old granddaughter, whose favorite pasttime is hiking in the Flat Iron mountains with her mother and new brother.  Here's a bit of the top half of the sweater...

Whatta think? A Chair Each?

That's was my husband's question to me when he made some homemade linguine and was trying to determine whether he had rolled out a sufficient amount. It was a lot -- trust me. And we ate it over two days. Soooo good. Once, a long time ago, my father and my husband made homemade pasta together. My father was a very enthusiastic cook, and excited to use the "machina" for the first time. There wasn't a surface or chair in the kitchen that wasn't completely draped with beautiful egg noodles. I only wish cell phones had existed then so I could have snapped a pic of that abbondaza!

From the Archives: David Foster Wallace on Art, Writing, Life and Work

Terri Windling has a wonderful post with quotes from an interview with David Foster Wallace on writing and art. As always, his ideas are so compelling and thoughtful. Years ago, I posted in the wake of his suicide, quotes from a commencement speech he gave at Kenyon College in 2005. And they are as timely today as they were then. 

The Wall Street Journal has published an excerpt from a commencement speech David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005 that is tough, edgy, and intensely personal. And in the wake of his apparent suicide last week at age 46, also terribly poignant. This is a real loss of a unique and powerful voice in American literature.

"Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clich��s, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on....

...Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom."

Building a Skeleton Out of a Basket of Bones: Bordertown WIP

 

The Bordertown stories, which now seem destined to move into a single novel, are throwing out so many narrative strands that I can barely get them threaded together before having to unwind them to allow for another configuration. I have been writing this in the exact opposite way I usually work by having first a strong opening, a solid draft of the ending, and then a hazy sense of the middle. It's a skeleton with a skull and feet first, and then write down the spine to connect the two parts. 

But this time...it's like someone threw a skeleton (of what I am not sure) into the air and all the bones, big and little, landed in a heap. So, here I am putting together the pieces. I have been writing down random sentences, not sure yet who is saying them or why they matter. And every time I write a few paragraphs and then walk away to take the wet clothes out of the washer and put them into the dryer, there are ten other possible directions the following paragraphs can take before I return to my desk. It's crazy. 

What the hell am I writing? Yet, for not knowing how it will come together, I am comforted by the fact that it feels organic and right; alive and determined to speak its mind. So many characters are clamoring to tell their stories. But at this point, it's like a Child Ballad, where often all you have is the most dramatic moment of a much longer story -- after all who the hell knows why Lord Randall's lover was so pissed off at him that she chose to poison him and his dogs over lunch? -- we never learn the reason, there is no back story to weigh down the tragedy, only the dying Randall answering his mother's anguished questions about where and with whom he had shared his fatal last meal. 

 So...trying to put these moments together -- and honestly, not even sure of the order. I'll keep collecting them, like cards in a deck until I have a full house.

 She wouldn't decay, not the rest of us. She was Blood. Her Elvin body would return to nature, into lichen, moss, wood and dark soil. She had already begun to change, the veins beneath the pale skin of her arms bleeding green. To cover her with the shroud was a crime. To leave her here unattended was a crime. To tell anyone I'd seen her would jack me up in the worst way. "Who left you here?" I asked the girl, wanting to shake her alive again. I stood, making the only decision I could. I had to find that halfiing and ask her into what sort of hell she'd gone and dropped me. And why me?

Farell Din, his back to the bar felt their presence before they spoke. He was drying a mug and wished to continue, so as not to have to turn and face them.  He heard them though, arguing. "Faite gor mohan flea?  Nah, grifted mach noile." To him it was gibberish, but to them it was a language of their own. He turned, not liking the chills up his spine at the sound of their words. "Nock. Dina," he greeted them, knowing their difference only by the color of their hoodies, red for Nock, black for Dina. "What will you have then? "  They started talking fast and at the same time, forgetting in their urgency they were still using their twin-speak. He set the mug down hard on the counter. "Plain speech," he ordered. The chills had turned to shivers. "A sylph is loose in Bordertown," Nock said. "She's gathering the great stones"-- "and she's taken Charon," Dina finished. Farell steadied himself, a hand gripping the edge of the bar. "And whose fault is that?" he asked. But neither would answer.

Ryder staggered on his feet, blood from his broken nose dripping over his chin. He held his fists up, dug his feet into the ground, as ready as he could be for the next assault. They were watching him, taking his measure, three of them, wolf and fox masks tied to the back of their head; gloved fists with claws. They barked at him, then howled, and he braced, feeling the weight of the stone hidden in his pack. Don't fuck up, he told himself, repeating the first rule of the dojo. But it was too late for that advice, he thought as he blocked a strike to his head and countered with a hard punch that split open the wolf's lips and cracked teeth. I'm already in too deep.

The bar was exploding with hardcore metal, the notes breaking out of the guitars like jack hammers. Rocket tore the song out of his ragged throat, and the throngs leaped to their feet, pounding and roaring with him. Nock stood in the middle of the deafening noise. She loved it, because the terminus stones beneath her feet awoke to the sound, shrugged and lifted up, buckling the cobblestones of a backstreet alley. They murmured and shuddered beneath the thin veil of concrete and the dancing crowd stumbled, drunk and ecstatic. Someone flicked on a strobe light, and Nock saw her, standing on the far side of the dance floor, her palm pressed against the wall to feel the vibrations. Caught in the pulse of silver light shards of mica gleamed on her granite skin. Their eyes locked, a cold smile on her face and Nock screamed as the room tilted, grinding as it turned on itself, changing shape as it moved, pressing falling dancers into new corners as it folded and refolded.  

Earlier Excerpts from the WIP: Bordertown Born and Bred Roots,  Charon Introduction

 

Art Credits: Flavia Pitis, Craftmanship  and Isaac Pelepko, Study of Antonia's Hair 

�� 2017 Midori Snyder. All fiction passages in this post may not be reproduced without the express and written permission of the author.

 

More Wild Children and the Joys of Grandparenting.

With the birth of a new grandson, there was much to be done as grandparents to meet and swoon over the wee boy, to store frozen meals for later in my daughter's refrigerator, and to play, rough-house, and amuse the new older sister, feeling slightly confused at being displaced from the absolute center of the family. This involved a lot of wresting, dancing, kid jiu-jitsu, and singing very loudly. Every morning she woke, and came into the living room and leapt on Grandmaster's chest as he was sleeping on the floor, and began her world domination tour.  I was safe on the couch...which would be used for later cuddling and reading. It was pretty hilarious.

What Does A Hero Owe to the Fantastic?

Many years ago, I wrote the short story "Vivian" for Martin Greenberg's Robin Hood Anthology. My take on the well-known tale was to imagine the complications of a man trying to be heroic, but unable to do it alone. This is in the spirit of behind every good man there is someone else making him possible. So what does Robin owe to the fantastic? How does he manage between wanting to be that hero and knowing that when he does becomes successful, it comes at the price of another. My intention was not to dishonor the Robin Hood narrative, but to explore the possibility of a more complicated story beneath the surface of the legend. 

"Give me my bent bow in my hand, And a broad arrow I'll let flee. And where this arrow is taken up, There shall my grave digge'd be."                                                                                             ��� From the "Song of Robin Hood" 

Robin gritted his teeth and raised the longbow. He nocked his arrow, the grey goose fletch drawn back beside his ear. His gaze followed the curve of the animal's chest, imagining the shaft penetrating to the heart. The doe snorted as a breeze stirred the branches of the tree above and water droplets sprinkled her head. She shook, startled and then caught Robin's scent. The two knuckles that held the bowstring back dug deeper into Robin's cheek as he willed himself to remain steady. The doe withdrew behind the bush, seeking cover. Robin stepped forward to keep his target in view. Beneath his foot a twig snapped a loud warning in the wood. Within a heartbeat the doe leapt from her hiding place and fled.

Cursing, Robin swerved his body, trying to track the rump of the fleeing doe as he let loose his arrow. The hopeful twang was silenced abruptly as the arrow thudded harmlessly into a tree.

Robin hung his head and groaned. Sweat chilled his temples, darkening the curly hair. Damn the greenwood! he swore in frustrated rage. It had turned against him, willing that he should starve from lack of game and freeze with the cold damp of a harsh winter. He looked up angrily and stared out at the black and grey trunks of the wintery trees. The leather-brown leaves of the oaks shivered dryly in response.

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Adrienne von Speyr on the Feast of the Assumption

"Thus, the Assumption, the distance and difference between heaven and earth are as bridged over and obliterated for the Mother. For she who who is now received by the Son into heaven is none other than she who received him on earth from heaven; and as her way expanded more and more, starting with the Son's conception and going all the way to her present reception into heaven by the Son, so this reception also expandsto its highpoint in the Son's conception by her. The two high points intensify one another and neither direction can be designated as the definitive one: from earth to heaven or from heaven to earth. It is an eternal circuit between God and man, heaven and earth, spiritual world and material world: a circulation also between Mother and Son. For, as the Mother had once said Yes to the Son and everything to do with him, so today the Son speaks his great assent to the Mother. This assent is divine and immeasurable and gives the Mother's assent its whole heavenly limitessness. As long as the Mother was in the world, she was as limited as any human being, and she had to bear those limits in mind whe she tried to work the Son's cause. From the moment of the Assumption on, she receives the power to be able to do what the Son's wills, without limits. She knows no boundaries except those we on earth set against her work. Only our No can hold back her eternal Yes. "  (Handmaid of the Lord, Adrienne Von Speyr,  translated by E. A. Nelson, Ignatius Press, 1985)

And this  lovely fragment from G. K. Chesterton's "A Little Litany": 

"���Star of his morning; that unfallen star
In that strange starry overturn of space
When earth and sky changed places for an hour
And heaven looked upwards in a human face."

 Art: The Assumption by Guido Reni in 1617.