Eileen Maksym's Blog, page 13

You’re a marked man, brother

Songs can be a great source of inspiration for writing.  One of my stories, “The Perfect Waltz,” was inspired by Coin Operated Boy by the Dresden Dolls.  This song is so sensual, full of a smokey rage, and it evokes so many images that can all turn into short stories.

Twins

Photograph by Nadia Maria. For more of her lovely work, click on the image. Hat tip Bleaq.com.

Twins have been a source of fascination for centuries.  They trigger the sense of the uncanny in us that’s brought on by doppelgangers, doubles that displace us or commit atrocities that are then ascribed to us (our “evil twin”). In some cultures twins are thought to not have souls.  In others they are liminal beings with special connections to the supernatural.  This is manifest in the common belief that twins are psychic, able to hear each others’ thoughts and tell when the sibling is harmed or killed.

I am fascinated by the idea that this psychic connection doesn’t end at death, and a person who has lost their twin has one foot in the hereafter.  I’ve written stories with this premise, and one of the potential sequels to my novella Haunted explores the idea in more depth.  It’s a comforting thought in a lot of ways, that our ties with the people we are closest to do not perish when we do. And who can be closer than a twin?

Caturday!

I’ve been at Vericon all day, so have cats being returned to their spaceship!

The not-so-gentle arts

The skeletons above are made of crocheted thread (you can see more here).  When knitting and crochet became popular some years ago, there was a flood of subversive patterns for people who want something more hip than socks. (Well, plain socks. I’ve seen some seriously hip patterns for socks.)  The free pattern site Knitty has a lot of stuff you wouldn’t expect to see in knitted form. Like this skull ski mask.  Or Blythe doll clothes. Or (I kid you not) a uterus.  Right now I’m knitting this skull scarf.

But subversive knitting isn’t necessarily new.  Consider Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities. She would knit as people were condemned to death, and knit their names in code into her pattern.  This use of knitting is unsettling, because we tend to associate the craft with home, with warmth, with little old grandmothers.  But isn’t that exactly why people have begun knitting the unexpected?  Knitting need not be confined to the realm of “safe,” and neither need be knitters themselves, usually women (but not always, and that is significant in its own way).  We might not be knitting the names of the condemned into our sweaters, but we can bring about our own revolution, one stitch at a time.

Horror in art

This article has some excellent examples of horror in classical art.  Great art evokes powerful emotion, and terror is powerful.  The above, Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Son,” is one of my favorite paintings.  The madness in the god’s eyes, the way his hands are about to tear the body right in half, the urgent and brash brush strokes…it hits me right in the gut. It terrifies me and yet I can’t look away.

Take a look at the paintings in the article.  Which one terrifies you most?  Which one can you not look away from?

Hominid

 

Artist Brian Andrews has created a world where humans and animals are fused, where human spiders hunt human birds.  You can find more of his world here.  Enjoy!

He’s behind me, isn’t he?

Have you ever gotten the feeling that someone is behind you, watching you? The hairs on the back of your neck prickle, and goosebumps stand out on your arms. You’re one sound, one creak, one footstep, one breath, away from fleeing in terror.  We’ve all been there.  But what if we’ve all been there because there’s always someone…something…behind us?

The above image comes from the awesome blog Behind You, one panel comics reminiscent of Chas Addams that show everyday people with horrors just a step behind. Check it out. Then spend the next 24-48 hours looking over your shoulder…

Dia de los Muertos: The Road to Mictlan

This short documentary is interesting, and has taught me some things about the Day of the Dead that I didn’t know.  For instance, did you know that the Day of the Dead is actually celebrated over two days? November 1st, All Saints Day, is for departed children, while November 2nd, All Souls Day, is for departed adults.  Give it a watch.

Shiny!

When I was a kid, we were in New York City one summer, and there was a homeless man selling little dinosaurs he had made out of aluminum foil.  The scale here is different but the basic premise is the same.  Everything around us, even something as pedestrian as aluminum foil, can become something beautiful.

What would be in your niche?

Many cemeteries have columbaria, rooms or buildings with niches where cremation urns may be placed.  Often these niches have glass fronts, and in addition to urns people place objects that represent the identity and life of the deceased.  The above image is photographer Dan Bannino’s idea of what Alice Cooper’s niche might look like.  As you can see, there are things that we would expect … the busts with his iconic eye makeup … and things we might not, such as the golf club and gloves that reveal a hobby that seems antithetical to our idea of a shock rocker.

What would fill your niche?  It’s a hard thing to think of, because how could a life fit inside such a tiny space? Maybe mine would have yarn and knitting needles, a skull, a pen and ink, a TARDIS, pictures of my kids, copies of my books.  Maybe a crucifix, a Red Sox cap, a Yale pennant.  A guitar.  A work by Dali.  It’s a difficult task, which is reassuring, since it means that our lives cannot be merely boiled down to what fits in a hole in the wall.

[If you would like to see other photographs in this series by Dan Bannino, you can find them here.]