Poppy Z. Brite's Blog, page 36

Eva and Dahlia

"Eva and Dahlia," acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20", $125 (sorry, no best offers on this one). Another conception of Eva Canning from Caitlín R. Kiernan's novel The Drowning Girl.

Eva Canning

"Eva Canning," acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20", $125 (or make an offer). This is my conception of Caitlín R. Kiernan's mermaid character from The Drowning Girl, a novel that has had a strong influence on my recent work. (Caitlín, when I can afford to get some nice prints made from Grey's photos of these, I'm going to send you a print of this one and the accompanying piece, "Eva and Dahlia," which I'll be putting up soon. Thanks again for the inspiration.)

Joseph Merrick

"Joseph Merrick," acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20", $125 (or make an offer). This is a portrait of the severely deformed Victorian gentleman popularly known as the Elephant Man, whom I've always kind of loved. (Because someone asked on Twitter: Yes, his first name is often given as "John," but most sources seem to agree that it was actually Joseph.)

Cool Stuff

New eBay auctions:

- First edition of Lost Souls with a charcoal sketch by me (Ann and the quote "4 AM knows all my secrets")

- 1996 issue of Rage magazine with nudie pix of me

- Signed copy of Plastic Jesus

- Signed (by me and Caitlín) copy of Wrong Things

I hope to put up several new paintings this week, too.

We're Going To Need A Bigger Canvas

The painting I'm working on necessitated that I watch Robert Shaw's death scene from Jaws last night. And I felt sick to my stomach for the rest of the evening. I can watch much gorier movies without a qualm, but Jaws always makes me sick because I first saw it when I was about seven, clamoring to go even though my mother thought it would be too scary, and it was too scary, and I ate a big tub of buttered popcorn, and the next day I got the stomach flu and threw up for days, and ever since then, I've never really been able to watch Jaws. (I saw it in its entirety once more, sometime in my thirties, and threw up again.)

Anyway, just now I was reading a news story about the great white shark whose corpse washed up in Massachusetts, and I came upon this wondrous exchange in the comments:

Mike • 9 minutes ago
do fish die of natural causes...
1 Reply

William • 9 minutes ago
WELL NO, THEY LIVE FOREVER TILL THEY GET CAUGHT.

It's almost always a mistake to read the comments on any Yahoo story, but once in a great while there is pure gold.

It's A Poor Sort Of Memory That Only Works Backwards

The power went off shortly after my last entry and came back on early this evening. Our gratitude goes out to all the states that sent trucks and workers. We're all fine, our houses are fine, things in general are shaken and stirred but pretty much fine. But ... I don't know ... I guess this brought back some memories I wasn't expecting. And fun body dysphoria stuff too. I don't want to talk about it. Probably I just need a few days of solitary fear and loathing. A little while ago I did a painting I may never show to anybody. Or, hell, I may just sell the fucker so I'll never have to see it again. I don't know if it's any good or not, but it's icky and gives me a terrible feeling to look at.

Transformers

Raining and blowing hard. The storm is sitting right on top of us, apparently. We still have power all along our street, but we can see transformers blowing out in the distance, up toward Riverbend, making the night sky flicker from black to a gorgeous, eerie turquoise.

Hodor

It's getting pretty gusty here. Places south of us are already taking a beating. Reports of power outages all over the city, but we still have it here in Central City for the time being. I'm sitting in bed wearing a heating pad (while I still can) and smoking hash (which will continue after the lights go out). Have now seen the first "Ew, I hope they don't send their dirty criminal refugees here again" comments out of Houston. I think I better quit looking at Facebook.

(The comment in question was prefaced with "I don't mean to be offensive, but ... " Along with its maggoty little relatives -- "I'm not racist, but" and the like -- is there any other phrase in the English language that better guarantees offensiveness to follow?)

Those of you who are both local and George R.R. Martin fans may be amused by Grey's assertion that every time he sees chief of police Ronal Serpas standing behind the mayor at a press conference, he expects him to shout "HODOR!"

Calm Down

My friend Louis Maistros said it better than I can:

"I respectfully decline to hit the panic button over this Isaac thing. It'll be a tough one, but not a monster. My biggest irritation right now is all the Katrina comparisons. My memory is better than that. Two days before landfall, Katrina was a cat 4 with a perfectly formed eyewall -- looked like a bloody golf ball wrapped tightly in a huge mass of cotton. Remember that shit? Now, THAT was scary. This one's just barely a Cat 1 with an eyewall made of raggedy clouds -- and it's less than 24 hours to landfall. It could get stronger and more organized, but it is running out of time for that. Friends from elswhere -- please don't let the TV coverage rattle you. This is not Katrina, it's just a big fat storm. You sign up for this kind of thing when you live near the Gulf. We'll be ok. And most sincerely: THANKS to all for your kind concern. It means a lot and is so appreciated."

We're getting the outer bands now -- rain and wind alternating with periods of calm. My current biggest problem is convincing my mom that she is probably not going to be able to get dinner at Subway tonight.

Grasping A Hot Coal

A light rain has been falling for about an hour. Just saw the first inevitable comment of this type, from some asshole on (of course) Facebook:

"Did people learn NOTHING the last time about living in a bowl ten feet below sea level?"

I ordered myself DO NOT ENGAGE DO NOT ENGAGE DO NOT ENGAGE, but the truth is that these days I usually find it remarkably easy not to engage. Someone commented on last night's entry that they miss seeing me get righteously pissed off. I know what they mean, and I feel like this blog is probably a lot more boring than it used to be, but there seems to be so little anger -- or at any rate so little argument -- in me these days. It's like I don't know how to channel Uncle Harlan anymore. I dunno.

I believe I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage
I found that just surviving was a noble fight
I once believed in causes too, I had my pointless point of view,
And life went on no matter who was wrong or right

-- Billy Joel, "Angry Young Man"