In other news, Nightmare in Silver came out last Saturday. *spoilers begin here* It was everything I could have hoped a cybermen episode could be. It was brilliant. And the evil doctor was a nice touch. I’m really liking Clara as a companion and I’m super excited (probably more excited than I should be) for next saturday’s episode. “The Name of the Doctor.” All leading up to the six month wait before (probably) the conclusion of that plot line in the 50th Anniversary Special on November 23. Yikes. But, all in Moffat’s time. We have no choice but to whimper along for the ride.

As always, post a comment if you want to say something about summer, books you read as a kid, writing, doctor who, cybermen, ranting about Steven Moffat (curse you!), whatever, just go for it!

       I was expecting to find Stefan looking like his new, devil-may-care self, but when I saw him in the lobby, he looked worse than ever. His cheeks were sunken and his hands shook despite his efforts to control them. He reminded me of a painting I had once seen entitled Death Walking, and it wasn’t comforting to think that given my newfound knowledge, this might have been a truer assessment than I would have liked.
       “Stefan, are you all right?” I asked as I came to a halt before him. His eyelids flickered, but that was the only sign of life my question elicited. I stared at him for what felt like an eternity. After about five minutes, I realized there would be no response. He was as still as the marble statue of Francesco Foscari we had seen adorning the Doge’s Palace that morning. To Stefan at that moment, I did not exist. His eyes were focused on something at the far end of the lobby. As I turned my attention to the point where he was gazing, I saw a flash of gold.
       “My ill luck be damned,” I swore under my breath. I would be forced to spend an evening in the company of that silver-tongued devil after all. What a night this would be. But as I looked again, relief washed over me. I had been mistaken. My fears, and Stefan’s seeming trance, had exaggerated the entire situation. The man idling in the opposite corner of the lobby resembled Salei only slightly. We were safe, for now. Vladec Salei was close, I could feel him, but he was not here—not yet. If we hurried, we might be able to throw him off the scent, for this night at least.
       I spoke to Stefan again. This time, a flicker of recognition registered in his eyes, and he seemed to come out of his coma.
       “Oh, Eric. I didn’t see you standing there.”
       The tone of voice in which he said this sounded drained of all life. It was all I could do to restrain myself from checking for a pulse to ensure that he was still living. “Stefan, you look…horrible,” I stammered, giving up the charade.
       “Well, I would, wouldn’t I, seeing as how I haven’t had a good rest in days.”
       I felt a pang of alarm at the admission. What had happened to him within the last hour to make him look so haggard? Days, he had said, but I knew it had only been two, impossible though it seemed, since Nadia had knocked me unconscious in the courtyard of Castle Bran.
       I would have given the world to be back in London at that moment, but if there was one thing Roderick had burned into my mind, it was to never flee from a situation because of fear. And what had I to fear anyway? Just the fact that a strange man and his coterie had attached themselves to us in Paris, and we had since been subjected to terrors I had not even experienced in my worst nightmares? Nonsense! Well, that was what my step-father would have liked me to believe, but I was of a different mind.
       I took Stefan by the arm. “Come, I’m getting you out of here at once.”
       For all his seeming lack of strength, the grip Stefan clasped my arm in was crushing. “What?” he said. I winced at the hatred in his voice. “Leave before I give you your surprise? No, no, Eric. It is your nineteenth birthday today, and, by God, we are going to celebrate in Continental style!”
       He released my arm and sauntered toward the door as if he possessed all the energy in the world. He was losing the battle with his better nature, and this realization plunged me into a despair that nearly drove me to tears, for once the other half won out, he would not only be lost to me, but to anyone who could have helped him before he fully succumbed.
       I watched dumbly as the porter opened the door for him. I was mildly surprised to hear Stefan wish the man “good evening” in perfect, unaccented Venetian. When had he mastered Italian, let alone the Venetian dialect? Stefan, whose first language was Romanian and who only learned to speak English out of, as he said, a highly inconvenient necessity? This ability must have been just another facet of Vladec Salei’s “gift.”
       I stood there growing angrier by the second, only noticing after a good three minutes that Stefan was waiting for me to join him on the pier.
       For what must have been the thousandth time that night, I second-guessed my course of action. I vaguely sensed that he was taking me somewhere dangerous, yet I couldn’t let him loose in a strange city when he was obviously struggling to control something he had not yet learned how to master. The sane thing to do would have been to run as far away from him as I could while I had the chance, but the situation was not as desperate as that…yet. There was nothing for it but to join him.
       Stefan was already getting into the gondola by the time I arrived at the pier. I expected the gondolier to be garrulous or start singing as soon as I took my seat, but the man seemed bent and cowed and had a strange abstracted look in his eyes, as if he were an automaton carrying out a duty he had no interest in.
       The gondola drifted slowly down the canal as I took in my surroundings. The night was brilliant, with millions of stars dotting the sky. A full, blue-tinted moon peeked out from behind a few stray clouds and illuminated the water, which glowed faintly green in the moonlight.
       I tried to think up something to say to Stefan, but was unsuccessful in my attempts. He, in turn, showed no inclination to talk during our journey, but instead draped his arm over the side of the gondola and let his fingers trail along the water’s surface, his eyes remaining transfixed on the moon. The one thing I had to stop myself from asking him was how he had enjoyed his hour with Vladec Salei. By the time I thought up a banal comment on the beauty of the night, something that could not possibly be construed as intrusive, we had arrived at our destination.
       “Here we are!” Stefan boomed, coming suddenly to life and nearly upsetting the gondola. “A splendid taverna, don’t you think?”
       I had to laugh in spite of myself because the so-called “taverna” looked more like a palazzo. Dozens of flaming chandeliers were affixed to the building’s exterior. Everywhere you looked, from the balcony on the fourth floor to the pier at the entrance, people were milling about with goblets grasped in their hands. “Rather a misnomer, don’t you think?” I said.
       “This is no laughing matter, my good son,” Stefan said. For that one instant, it was as if the old Stefan had returned, so jovial and natural was his tone. But when he looked back at the taverna, all his joviality vanished and a vacant look entered his eyes.
       “La Dimora di Notte,” he said, almost reverentially. He closed his eyes and stood there as though he had been transported by some unknown bliss. I was already wary of this nocturnal escapade, but upon hearing the name of the place, a chill went through my body. I involuntarily looked over my shoulder, certain my eyes would light upon a face I was not prepared to see.
       “The Dwelling of Night?” I asked uneasily.
       Stefan’s eyes flickered open, and he seemed to regain his composure. His moods were so erratic that it was almost impossible to determine how he would react in any given situation. A mere word, question, or glance, however harmless it might have seemed, could have sent him into a rage or the deepest melancholy. He was becoming as changeable as Vladec Salei.
       “Roughly translated, yes,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear his mind. “Catchy, isn’t it?”
       “A rather strange name for a tavern, don’t you think?”
       “Not at all!” he said, smiling. His better nature was at the forefront. How long this would last, I could not say. “It is night, people dwell here. It’s all very fitting. The top floor is where we are headed. Come, step lively. We’ve already tarried long enough.”
       Stefan punched me in the arm and we headed down the pier toward the brass double doors, which swung open ceremoniously before we reached them. I thought they had opened of their own volition and was momentarily startled until I saw that a porter was standing on the inside. Stefan said something to the man in an undertone I couldn’t catch and jerked his thumb back at me. The man laughed suddenly and Stefan joined in his mirth, sharing in the private joke that had no doubt been made at my expense.
       I smiled despite my annoyance and followed Stefan up the first flight of stairs. At the first landing, I noticed that there was a passageway that led off to a private room. The door was closed to public eyes, but the sounds that pierced through the brass told of some great revelry taking place within. I could hear glasses clanking and voices raised in jubilation. Someone let out a screech that sent chills down my neck, but I was apparently being oversensitive because a great burst of laughter followed what I had thought was a cry of pain.
       The stairwell did not match the undoubted opulence of this secret room, however. The walls were whitewashed and peeling in several places. There was no light at this stage. Had it not been for the brilliant golden beam that was visible underneath the doorway of the private room, this entire landing would have been cloaked in almost total darkness.
       “Isn’t it divine?” Stefan gushed, obviously feeling right at home.
       “That wasn’t exactly the word I was thinking of,” I answered.
       “Oh, stop being a prude, Bradburry.”
       My head snapped up at the sudden use of my surname. He had never called me Bradburry before, even in jest, and the fact that this had occurred in such a disreputable place as I was discovering this “taverna” to be, filled me with a sense of foreboding I could not repress. Only one other person had ever called me that—Vladec Salei.
       We walked up to the second landing in silence and were making our way to the third, when I was nearly knocked off my feet. The man sagged against me and didn’t seem to be conscious, until I collared him and he came to life with a vengeance. He rushed me like a thing possessed, his arms flailing about, his fists punching madly at the air, but I countered with a blow to the jaw that sent the man reeling. He staggered back against the wall, clutching his face and moaning pitifully, and I was astonished to see that the man who had attacked me was our gondolier.
       “Well, look who we have here!” said Stefan in that same perfect Venetian he had used before, shocking me by going over to my assailant and placing his arm around the man’s shoulder as if they were the best of friends.
       I’d heard of being kind to one’s enemies and turning the other cheek, but this was ridiculous.
       “What an unfortunate incident,” he said soothingly. I half expected him to pat the man’s hand as if he were merely a child who had fallen and scraped his knee. “Now, do the sensible thing and get upstairs and refresh yourself, my good man. Off with you, now!”
       The man looked as bewildered as I was, but upon hearing that he was not going to be detained, relief registered on his face and he scurried up the stairs.
       “You must be kind to these poor wretches,” Stefan said magnanimously, straightening his jacket, although this action wasn’t necessary, since he had taken no part in the scrum. “He is in obvious need of stimulants. Besides, he is our ride home.”
       “I think stimulants are the last things he needs. The man is obviously drunk beyond reason. Who knows how many more of his friends are waiting to ambush us upstairs. And how did he even get upstairs before us, for that matter? And if you think for one moment that I am going to get into the same gondola as that raving madman, well, you don’t know me at all. I think it’s time we left.”
        “Absolutely not!”
       His voice reverberated through the vacant stairwell like a clap of thunder. His face clouded over so dramatically and his eyes grew so dark that only the huge black pupils were left visible. I stared in horror at what I could have sworn was no longer Stefan, but a demon released from the bowels of hell.
       Just as quickly as the fury had come, it vanished, and Stefan was once again himself, or as near to himself as the other side of his nature would allow him to be.
       “We’ve come this far already,” he said in a soothing tone I had never heard him use before. “Are you, the ‘Man of the Hour,’ going to let one drunken reveler spoil the entire evening?”
       I looked at him warily, knowing it was just another trick, this cajoling of his, to get me to go on. I had no desire to spend another minute in this wretched place and was on the verge of making my feelings known, when I suddenly felt the urge to discover what it was that Stefan and the other patrons found so enticing about this mysterious fourth floor. Against all my better judgment, I gave in. The pull of this place, coupled with my inordinate curiosity, was becoming too strong to resist.
       “Very well,” I agreed.
       “Splendid! Come, the hour is growing late.”
       I watched him dart up a few more steps before I began to trudge along behind.
       As we passed the third landing, I noticed for the first time that Stefan was carrying a cane of some sort. Why he hadn’t used this to stop my attacker was beyond me, and the thought that he had had a weapon handy and had done nothing with it made anger well up inside me all over again.
       I hurried after him, trying to catch a better glimpse, since the light was growing a trifle brighter at this stage. But when I finally saw it, I wished I hadn’t. My heart somersaulted in my chest. The top of the cane was made of gold and had been carved into the shape of a beast’s head.
       A wyvern’s—exactly the same as the pendants the vampiresses had worn.
       The only difference was that the gems that were set into the eye sockets were emeralds instead of rubies, yet they still sparkled with an unearthly intensity. I had never seen him with that cane before, but the sinking feeling in my stomach told me it had been a gift from his newest and dearest friend, for it had been personalized just for Stefan. The eyes were green like his, not red like Salei’s had been when he had revealed himself to me, if only for an instant. This wyvern was fiercer and more striking than the others. I wondered if it had been designed to symbolize Stefan’s transformation into a monster more powerful than even Vladec Salei.
       “So it has begun…” I said, but the words faded away.
       We had finally reached the fourth floor.
       I thought I was standing on the threshold of a seraglio. Silk hangings of red and gold, crimson and brilliant ochre, met my eyes everywhere I looked. The room was nearly full to capacity, with people lounging about on overstuffed cushions or sitting at one of the few tables scattered around the chamber. As I looked up, I saw several gold chandeliers dangling from the frescoed ceiling. Each chandelier contained a single candle that guttered in a red Venetian blown-glass holder. The effect was striking yet eerie, since the lights cast a reddish pall over the room, making everyone appear to be bathed in blood.
       I looked over at Stefan to see if he shared my concern, but he was smiling so broadly I thought his face would split.
       “What did I tell you?” he said, taking my arm and guiding me over to an empty table at the farthest end of the room. “A birthday to remember!”
       Stefan signaled to a waiter and ordered the man to bring us two glasses of the taverna’s finest wine. The man gave me a sidelong glance that made me feel decidedly unwelcome, then bustled off to the elaborate, mirrored bar at the other end of the room. There must have been over a hundred bottles of wine encased in the intricately wrought Venetian glass holders resting on the bars’ shelves. I had no desire to join Stefan in fraternizing with our neighbors at the next table—whom he seemed to be getting along famously with—so I decided to make a count of the bottles to keep my mind occupied until the drinks arrived.
       I had counted twenty bottles before I noticed the gondolier sitting at the bar, glowering at me over the rim of his wine glass. My mood did not improve when I saw that he was advancing to our table, our drinks set atop a golden platter he was carrying.
       He placed Stefan’s glass down first. After Stefan gave him a pointed look, he set the other glass before me.
       “Grazie,” said Stefan, but the gondolier was already walking back to his post at the bar.
       “I’m not drinking that,” I said, pushing the glass into the center of the table. “Why in the world would he be giving us our drinks?”
       “A member of the brethren.”
       “Beg pardon?”
       “It’s a guild they have here,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “I remember reading about it before we arrived. Quite powerful, I’ve heard. Its members are not limited to a single profession.”
       He was mocking me. I could see his mouth beginning to lift in a maddening smirk, a smile that was half sardonic and half secretive, as if the fate of the world depended on the answer to a riddle only he knew and would never share.
       I looked away from him in disgust, my eyes lighting upon the goblet I had refused. In all the tumult, I had not paid attention to the contents of the glass. Now that I studied it, I realized that it was the most viscous looking drink I had ever seen in my life. It did not look anything like wine, but rather resembled a thick, red-black custard. I felt sick just staring at it. Stefan shouldn’t drink that. Who knew where it came from and what it even was. I reached for the glass, but stopped myself before my fingers could close around the stem. Something distracted me, something I hadn’t noticed until that moment.
       Everyone else in the taverna was downing the same drink.
       “At last,” Stefan said, eying the glass hungrily. “It has to be drunk in one fell swoop, so the locals say. Well, when in Rome, eh, old friend?” And before I could answer, he set the glass against his lips, tilted back his head, and the liquid was gone. After a minute, he let out a satisfied sigh and opened his eyes. “Not bad,” he said. “Not bad at all.”
       Stefan signaled to the gondolier again. “Another two glasses of Sangue di Vita for me and my friend here,” he said in Venetian. By the time the gondolier turned away, Stefan had claimed my glass and drunk the wine in that goblet, too.
       “Tell me, Eric,” he said, licking a droplet from the corner of his mouth. “Have you ever tasted blood?”
       My mouth was so dry I could barely find the voice to answer him. “What an odd question…”
       “But a valid one. Well, have you?”
       “I’ve cut my lip before, so yes, I suppose I have tasted blood, but…”
       “Not your own, you foolish boy.” He let out a short, derisive laugh and leaned in so that he was only a few inches from my face. “I mean the blood of another.”
       “Good God, Stefan, of course not!”
       “Pity…”
       I jerked away from him in horror. There was such genuine disappointment in his voice when he said this that I believed he had finally gone insane.
       “Stefan, this is madness,” I said, my voice cracking in spite of my resolve to remain calm, “listen to yourself. What are you saying?”
       “I’m saying that there are things in this world you cannot understand. Things you don’t even want to imagine.”
       “And why should I be concerned about any of this?”
       The gondolier returned with two more glasses of the wine. Stefan inclined his head in thanks, took the goblet between his fingers, and looked me dead in the eyes. “Because, my dear Eric, I have tasted the secret knowledge. I know how much to say and when to pull back. I know what to see and not see. And now that I have become whole again, I can never go back. All these things he has given me. Better than my supposed mother and father ever could. For that, I owe him my life and allegiance.”
       “Stefan, this is nonsense!” I cried. My voice echoed off the walls of the suddenly silent room. Apparently, my outburst had made our table the center of attention. Dozens of bloodshot eyes were now leering at us. And all of those eyes looked…unnatural. It was something about them, the way they were illumined in the darkness, as if they possessed a light all their own. Of course, it could have been the sheen that occurs when one has had too much to drink, but I doubted that was the reason. I had seen the same glassy look in the eyes of the gondolier when he had attacked me.

© 2010, 2013 Melika Dannese Lux and Books In My Belfry, LLC. Unauthorized use or reproduction of this excerpt without the author’s permission is strictly prohibited.

]]> http://precari0us.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/house-with-water/ Wed, 15 May 2013 14:39:10 +0000 precari0us http://precari0us.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/house-with-water/ http://wordswithryon.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/chronomentrophobia/ Wed, 15 May 2013 12:38:56 +0000 piwoman314 http://wordswithryon.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/chronomentrophobia/ This is a short story that deals with a fear that actually has a name – chronomentrophobia, the fear of clocks. I have had a love/hate relationship with clocks for as long as I can remember, so I decided to write it into a story. Here it is:

The clock was still there, staring him down. It was a very beautiful clock, with golden hands and a mother-of-pearl face, but somehow it still seemed menacing, like it would jump out and eat him at any moment. He turned left, and the clock stared him down again. He left the room, and there was the same clock on the mantelpiece.

He nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned again, and there it was. He turned right this time. There was another clock, mahogany this time, resting on top of the harpsichord. He looked down, trembling. A clock! This time, it was made of bright red wood. Everywhere he looked, the walls, the floors, all about the house, there were clocks.

Clocks!

Clocks!

CLOCKS! his thoughts screamed.

Then, he heard a chime from the next room – Westminster’s Chime. Then, all of the clocks followed its lead until there was a din, a cacophony. Some clocks chimed the hour, others chimed the half. Others chimed one, two or three. He thought his head would explode. He shut his eyes and opened them.

Right there, hovering centimeters in front of his face, was the first clock, the hands making the shape of a grin. It chimed its eerie, beautiful, terrible chime and then all the clocks rose up as well, still chiming. They began to orbit around him, a terrible whirlwind. Then, out of another room, a beeping began to sound.

BEEP!

BEEP!

BEEP!

The clocks all fell to the floor like feathers and skittered away. He sighed with relief. He had never been more glad to hear the sound of his alarm clock in his entire life.

A new study at the University of Maryland found that nightmares actually do cause real problems and fights the next day.

The researchers say, “People’s activity changes as a function of the dream they had the night before, specifically in the realm of close relationships.”

They found that when someone had a dream where they were jealous, they were more likely to report an argument the next day.  When someone had a dream about cheating, they felt less intimate and loving the next day.

There are two theories on why this happens.  One, your dreams are a sign of a deep-seated lack of trust and just push it to the surface a little more.

Or two, your brain is just testing you to make sure your relationship is stable, strong, and what you really want.

The idea of not being able to change this world for the better is a nightmare for most people.

Everyone wants a better life and many want a better world. 

Dis-empowerment turns us all into victims, feeling trapped and helpless.

The solution however can be relatively simple.

Do!

Do something to improve your life or someone else’s life.

It can be as simple as saying “Hello” to an older person, or picking up litter when out for a walk.

Volunteering one day a week in a charity shop, or saving kitchen scraps for the birds.

Planting trees for the future or seed-bombing derelict land.

Whatever we do impacts upon our lives, and the world around us.

Generosity of spirit is worth cultivating.

The Blackbird sings his song regardless of  the weather.

Planting a tiny sapling is a small task…sitting under a mighty Oak is heaven…

It is all about what we do!

Dreams, they are the fantastical playgrounds of the mind in which we can live out our most explicit fantasies whether that may be smiting dragons and capturing a horde of gold, experiencing with your mind just what the color purple is or flying through the heart of a star to witness the sheer elation of a supernova.  But what about those unfortunate to have their sleep turn against them, forced each night to do battle with their dreams.  Those few and ill-fated Dream Warriors; RAW artist David Mel is one of those fighters and this is his journey.

Every day David does battle with Narcolepsy, “It’s a disease that robs it’s victims of sleep, routine, self-esteem, relationships & eventually ….hope.” Hope for a normal life. That same dream state for the Narcoleptic is, at times, a nightmare where vivid visions encapsulate the mind & body. “I would keep my painting supplies beside my bed and when at the end of the dream I would instantly start painting what I’d experienced.  As they developed they became what I call “atmospheric abstract landscapes.”  Life-like astral projections, tunneling patterns of color, confrontations with a “demonic” presence & Cataplexy are all symptoms.”  But through the use of his art he finds strength.

For the last two years David’s most recent obsession has been on a series of geometric mandala paintings.  “I’ve been uplifted in an almost spiritual sense, in the creation of mandalas.”  These paintings are carefully crafted by using old school drafting tools with elements of tribal, folk art, abstraction & pop art that go towards detailing some of the patterns seen in his dreams.   The process is completely random really, I’ll start with the canvas, take a compass and make some circles, add some colors and shapes until a geometrical pattern starts to appear.”  There is a tribal feel to these paintings, as if they are from an ancient unknown culture.  Looking at these seemingly random compositions a veriaty of different feelings can be inferred.   To some there is a calming power where to others, the sharpness of shape and line and repetition of elements could express something more carnal.

More about David’s work as well as where you can expect to see his work next can all be found on his website http://www.davidmel.net/

With the rise of RAW: Connecticut, be sure to check out our next upcoming showcase at the Russian Lady New Haven.  Mark your calendars and be prepared to RAWk as we have our first showcase at our new venue, EXPRESSIONS on Wednesday May 29^th.  Doors open at 8 and will remain so till midnight, for tickets, our artists and more information about RAW can be found at http://www.rawartists.org/hartford

The first dream sequence is that I go into a tunnel.  I then walk into the tunnel, and at the end is a sort of pipe line in the ground.  The pipe is submerged with water and is pitched black( as to limit my vision of where this pipe leads to).  The pipe is pointed straight down and large enough just for me to squeeze through. I slide into the pipe head first.  I squirm my way for what seems like 15 feet down.  I then come to a room that is about as large as a classroom (this is also submerged in water).  The room has  a protruding structure, much like a patio) which has a metal rail bordering the structure and the whole place was covered in green, slimy algae. This whole room had a nautical setting to it.  As if the pipe led to a sunken boat or submarine. I observe this algae covered, chrome room and calmly made my way towards the opposite end of the room where a door appeared.  All this time, I wondered how I held my breath for so long, with such ease.  The door was what gave the setting of a sunken submarine because it had a small circular window towards the top of the door, plus it had a turning wheel, which was the opening mechanism.  I turn the wheel and swam through. A sudden transition of setting stuns me as I appear on solid concrete in front of what looks like a school campus.  Night time has come and the moon shined its radiant  white rays, just enough light to allow me to see once my eyes adjusted.  I believe the best description would be in one of the classrooms of my elementary in La Canada: PCY.  I do recall meeting a group of 3-4 kids my age and just following them.  We made no contact at all, that meant no talking, greeting, or even looking.  As if I was told to, I followed the gloomy kids towards the vending machines.  My vision was still limited even with the machines emitting light.  After that I remember appearing back into the nautical room (now back underwater again).  I just floated in the room.  The cool water flowing through my body as if I were part of the soft current.  I just stayed suspended in the room with my back against the door which lead to the school.  And what seemed to be hours, I black out and wake up.  

All this is my actual dream and occurred to me for about the 3rd time.  I do fear this dream because I am so calm and collected when I should be drowning.  One of the worst ways to die ( in my opinion) is to drown.  To feel the water fill your body as your lungs and throat gasp for even a tad bit of air.  Then, when you choked on enough water, you fade away.  

I hope to learn what this dream actually means and why it continues to return to me.

In 2012, NEIL GAIMAN delivered an all-time classic episode of Doctor Who, “The Doctor’s Wife”. The That Thing You Like podcast crew loved it to pieces. It was funny, charming, scary, and even a little tear-inducing – a legitimately tremendous episode of television. We were as excited as kids on Christmas for his second effort, “Nightmare in Silver”.

We did not love it to pieces.

In the latest That Thing You Like, we go into deep spoilers on an episode that really isn’t even worth spoiling. We talk about the few truly enjoyable Gaiman-esque moments, the problematic and ultimately purposeless children, and why 3,000,000 monsters are not better than one monster.

Thoughts are fairly divided on the new Gaiman episode, but Chris and I (Brian) aren’t afraid to pass judgment: It just wasn’t that good. More than that, it utilized some of Doctor Who’s worst tropes. Sigh. Neil, we still love you. Love you hardcore.

Subscribe on iTunes here! 

Or, click here to listen: http://bit.ly/10X3qjF

If you like the show, please rate and review us on iTunes. Or don’t, that’s perfectly alright. Thanks for listening!

Twitters:

Chris – @cbax
Brian – @brian_rs

I”ve not been comfortable in my dreams

Every night they turn to nightmares

I’m being attacked and ‘they’ are angry

running away and away and away

But never fast or far enough

‘they’ are always right behind me

and I can’t run from an audience

Glued onto the television screen

When I am my protagonist

the only writer to my scenes

I need to break through its glass and

Face them

In a closer dimension

To peel away that layer of unconscious insecurities

Pick out the bad bits bit by bit and

Clean the chaos of my mind

Two people yelling at one another, and a baby crying in the back ground. It’s the anthem I listen to. The soundtrack in my new home. I sit with my head in my knees and my hands pressed against my ears, pressed so hard that the pressure hurts my head. I just want it to stop. I know that there must be something I can do to stop it. Without thinking about it, I jump up to action. I walk talk and quick to the source of the anger. I grab the should and jerk the owner of the dominating voice so his body faces me. As his body jerks towards me he loses grip of the neck of the woman who he has pinned up against the wall and she walls to the ground. Where I previously sat away from them I had not realized the confrontation had turned physical. Sure enough though, her face is bruised and blood pours down onto her shirt from her nose like a faucet. As the man realized what happens and that he has lost gripped his arm raises and his hand forms a fist. It takes the poser of every reflex in my body to become aware of what is happening and respond  properly. As his fist swings to make contact with my face my entire body ducks to miss the blow. I turn and run away. I can hear him chasing me. Hot on my tracks. I make my way down the stairs jumping nearly all of them. I make it to my bedroom door slip inside and dive for the side of my bed. I know it’s where it is. My hand blindly gropes around until I can feel the cool metal of the polish barrel. Daddy never taught me to shoot but Mama raised me in a way to know that it should only take one shot. Pulling the revolver out from under the bed I turn with my back resting against the wall, pull the hammer back and hear the click. Just as I take aim the door crashes open, he must have stumbled on the stairs, the only explanation I can come to. As his entire body lunges from the door at me I pull the trigger and hear the loud bang of the gun firing, the bullet enters his chest. He hits his knees. Hot tears stream down my face and I am hyper aware how loud my heart is beating, I realize that I am not breathing and I have to force air into my lungs. His body completely hits the ground. I think I’m in the clear and just as I am about to move his hand jerks and he grabs my ankle.

At this point I always wake up with a start.

I know why I have this nightmare. I know what the source is. I wasn’t raised in an abusive home. My parents never had anything my love for each other and for me. A few months ago, after my life got flipped upside down, I moved in with my cousin. It didn’t take long for me to find out that it didn’t take much for him to get angry with his wife. And soon after finding that out I found out that after being angry for a while things often got physical. One night I witnessed a fight. I was in the living and they were yelling at each other in the bedroom. The next day I found out that he grabbed her my the neck and threw her up against the wall. Soon after I called my dad, even though I’m a 20 year old adult he made the decision that I was moving home. He came to get me on a Sunday, the Friday before, my cousin started yelling and fighting with me. I’m still amazed that he didn’t get physical. That’s a part of me that’s glad that he didn’t and a part of me that wishes that he had. I did not have a gun, but I can say with confidence he would not have lived to tell about it.

Alumina by Nightmare

Entry for May 12…

Sorry I’m behind. Work has been exactly that- work. Exhausting.

BUT… anyways. My first Visual Kei song, as I stated in the last blog entry, was Alumina by Nightmare.

My friend had it on his Myspace profile and I just happened to click play… that’s when it started.

Yomi’s voice just pulled me in. It is so full and luscious- totally not what you expect to hear when he is talking in interviews.

The piano is what captured me the most instrumentally. Then it was Sakito’s solo~

I cannot really explain why I fell in love with this so quickly… it certainly peeked my interest. It might have had a lot to do with Hitsugi and me finding him cool. Maybe that I fell in love with Yomi because I had never heard a voice that smooth before.

After Alumina, it went to the World… then Raven Loud Speeeaker… then Tokyo Shounen… Varuna… and tidal wave of Nightmare music.

Listening to this song and having to think about all of this brings me back to when I was 14 and listening to mainly ONLY Nightmare. It was before I got curious and ventured through Youtube. I had stuck to mostly Nightmare- building a collection of their music. I USED to have everything… but with various computer crashes and my lack of computer smarts… I lost most of it. I was able to get back a little- select songs like the ones mentioned above and few others… even a few newer ones.

I’m hoping to rebuild my collection here soon. My boyfriend is a die hard Nightmare fan and nearly has all of their music… he’s been meaning to put it on a zip drive for me. So… all isn’t lost ^^

BUT… I hope you can see as to why I was just pulled in and forever stayed in the Wonderland known as “Visual Kei”. Nightmare did a very good job at playing the White Rabbit~

The wit prevents surrealism from devolving into the absurd. The narrative intensity recalls Albert Camus’s L’Etranger, the humour Dario Fo. For months or years the ambulance driver makes conflicting statements, impersonating every kind of fighter, serving opposite sides of the conflict—until he is released with a sac of severed heads like the one he had in the ambulance when they first stopped him. Meanwhile cars are exploding, gunmen terrorise whole neighbourhoods, houses are shelled without warning. But the man who leaves is driven by something deeper than the criteria listed on refugee-status application forms in Scandinavia. He senses that, where he lives—and not because of suicide bombers or torture—he has been robbed of something key, deprived of a self he might have had, his life denied meaning. It may be that this man is a sincere intellectual critical of his country’s backwardness. Having survived the brainwash, the Cause no longer convinces him. Nor does Identity, Imperialism, Orientalism and other defecations of history’s Arab-Muslim posterior. He feels the weight of his own absurdity. But it equally may be that this is a man of Religion or of the Regime, a dork or a douche bag that thrives on duress, seeing trouble only when his material life cracks under absurdities he has never acknowledged. He too wants out now. He wants to go places or, having been places, to go somewhere. As the ambulance driver tells the psychiatrist at the asylum to which immigration has sent him, pleadingly: he wants to sleep. And so, a refugee in Hassan Blasim’s short stories might be one of 35 illegal immigrants abandoned to the pitch-black interior of their Berlin-bound truck after the driver flees without bothering to unbar the door, only to be ravaged by a werewolf from among them. Yet he might also be a soldier who has never left Iraq: someone who is a refugee neither subjectively nor objectively but by virtue of being in the army under Saddam. It doesn’t even matter whether he knows he is a refugee. In “The Virgin and the Soldier”, the hero survives by cutting three fingers off the hand of the seamstress with whom he is trapped in a storage room—with tailor shears. They both work in a military clothing factory, and they go to that room because it is their only possible meeting place. They are deep in their illicit embrace when they realise they’ve been locked in, with a pile of uniform rejects for a mattress. Now it’s been three days without food or water and the soldier must have something to eat. In the end he never deflowers his seamstress.

WRITER: So refugees are people who, confined and deprived, end up devouring each other; they may even turn into wolves for the purpose. This is how Blasim redefines the word. Like every seriously strong metaphor, cannibalism is classic stuff, as profound as it is unoriginal. Only a true writer can get away with using it so effortlessly. A writer: someone who in another context is himself a refugee, but whose role just now is to tell a refugee’s tale, or a soldier’s. Or a werewolf’s. Blasim contains everything from Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony” to Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. A writer is so called not because he has a contribution to make to national consciousness, a presence in the media or a role to play in society—most of the time there is in fact no society—but because he remoulds reality into something enjoyable. He redefines words. He also comments on what History he experiences, of course, but only obliquely, without emotion and to inconclusive ends. So a true writer is automatically overshadowed by a fake brand of eponymous creature: “They claim they are builders who will rebuild what the war lay waste to, cultured politicians and economists, doctors, surgeons and interpreters of catastrophes, destroyers of the idols of religion and superstitions.” Not so Khaled Al Hamrani, 57, author of three collections of short stories published at his expense, tenacious bard of his neighbourhood’s totally insignificant souk, and hero of “The Story Souk”. “You can make the woman fishmonger at the market a spaceship lost in the cosmos, or turn aubergines into a lesson in philosophy; the important thing is to observe for a long time, like someone contemplating suicide from a balcony,” Hamrani tells the local newspaper in an interview. “It’s also important to own an unpretentious imagination that is nonetheless sly and dead serious, and to have the soul of a dying ascetic. This souk that I write about is to me a wide ocean, in which I am only a bubble that is undoubtedly there but not clearly visible.” Hamrani dreams of a mysterious set of numbers, he remembers particular horrors of the war. Eventually he tricks the reader into believing that he has died in a bombing at the souk while buying his son new shoes, one of which he holds onto as he breathes his last, when in fact he is making it up. It is Hamrani who has been writing “The Story Souk”, not Blasim. But, to see the world in a blood-washed shoe? A man who has never travelled, who has no interest in leaving his hometown or writing about anything other than its souk, no literary ambition beyond getting his stories down on paper: in his sheer ordinariness Hamrani ironically comes across as History’s witness, someone who realises that it wouldn’t matter if he died. “They mourn the nonexistent readers,” the narrator says of those builders and surgeons, those bastards. “They’ve also found that writers of previous times are the ones who let the readers go, whereas for hundreds of years there’ve been in the country no readers in the broad sense of the word. There’ve been only hungry people, murderers, illiterates, soldiers, villagers, people who pray, people who get lost and wronged people.”

SOLDIER: A stretch of wall splattered with the brains of a girl. The girl’s head was hit by the wing of a plane that was shot down in Kirkuk. Her body flew up into the sky and reportedly never came down. The kind of ancient image a true writer will bring to his ultra-realistic setting: he parades it like an animated rune. Writers dream and play tricks, bear testimony. But essentially they are persons who contemplate their deaths with equanimity. It’s what soldiers too must do if they are to live out their time before they become refugees or die. Contrary to the wishes of their superiors—Saddams, Qaeda commanders, Guardians of Iran’s Islamic Revolution—soldiers do not want to be in battle. And by the random rules of this book, everyone is a soldier of some kind: an instrument of power, an employee of reality. Everyone is here against their will. That is why, having lived his story, a soldier will apply for refugee status at the immigration offices of literature. In the title story, a madman imagines an alternative history of his town, in which the townspeople engage in full-blown war with the government to prevent the dismantling of a statue of two blond young men who brought the town good fortune long ago. Elsewhere people compete to tell their tales of atrocity through a dedicated radio channel: the more atrocious, the better. An Iraqi in the Netherlands is so determined to shed his past he calls himself Carlos Fuentes and stops speaking Arabic. Despite his astonishing success at becoming a Dutchman in waking life, Fuentes is tormented by nightmares in which he is Iraqi again. A military correspondent receives a series of ingenious novel manuscripts by post. Their writer is a young soldier who, as it turns out, has died in battle. The correspondent publishes the novels in his name, he is rich and famous. Yet the dead man just won’t stop sending him manuscripts, each as brilliant as the next—and he ends up burning himself in the furnace he sets up to get rid of the excess poetry. Still, there are subtler ways to die. “The Corpse Exhibition” is a pep talk to a novice artist of murder. The older agent of the Organisation explains how much he hates the horror-movie sensationalism of traditional methods. In contrast, he gives the example of an agent who turned the flesh and bone of the target into a concrete-like flagpole on a mound, with the fluttering flag made of the target’s skin. The agent completed his art work while the target—himself a failed agent—was conscious. It also transpires that agents are practically unable to ever leave the Organisation once they join, that the work of killing and publicly displaying the corpse is systematically funded and administered, that the Organisation moves from one part of the world to another, staying only for as long as conditions are unstable. Thus the fascist philosophy of lightening the world’s human burden combined with G J Ballard: art is art is macabre, apparently. At the start of the pep talk the agent unsheathes a knife that he keeps holding; by the end he will thrust it in the novice’s gut, saying, “You are trembling.”

SHAPESHIFTER: A soldier, then, is someone who trembles, especially someone who trembles when he’s not supposed to; a soldier is a human being after all. But so, all things considered, is the alien Hassan Blasim (b. 1973), the Iraqi who lives in Finland, an Arab writer first published in translation—logically, when you think about it. Addressing his dead psychiatrist in Helsinki, one character says, “I am unable to write a story, but I am ready to be involved in the issue of literature to one end only: for the dignity of those on the brink of madness.” Quotable lines bob on the dense surf of the story: the psychiatrist’s fatal car accident; plans to include a live camel in the decor of an Iraqi restaurant; the rudimentary sci-fi saga unfolding in the mind of the hero. In “The Bad Habit of Undressing”, a chance conversation with a jobless drunk raises the question of sanity again. “Better to say ‘authentic’ than ‘mad’, for authenticity is talking to others in spite of the nightmare terror and pain.” And the tone of the drunk describing his habit of never wearing clothes in the house turns out to be as authentically desultory as it should be. Miraculously, a wolf appears in the hall of the drunk’s apartment; the man locks himself in the bathroom, but after 48 hours hiding, he decides to open the door and confront the wolf, naked or not. Pouncing on the beast as the beast pounces on him, the man enters an otherworldly darkness. The suggestion is never spelled out that, instead of the wolf being a projection of his, for the duration of that semi-conscious state, the drunk is or becomes the wolf a la Zhuangzi. Shapeshifting, blessing or curse, is the prerogative of both the soldier who becomes a refugee and the writer who recounts the becoming. Is it what happens to Jaafar Al Mtalbi when he turns from the composer of the regime’s official songs to a professional blasphemer who is eventually killed in the most gruesome way. Is it what happens to the narrator of “That Ill-Fated Smile” when he is beaten up by Nazis, having been unable to suppress his meaningless smile all day? Is it what happens to Blasim himself when he writes? “Doctor,” says the Helsinki-based hero of “The Dung Beetle”, “we have observed the planet Duouis Tumla… and are now certain that no one lives on it except the six recorded by the space observation cameras. What is surprising is that they have not crossed the borders of their village on the banks of the Red River. That is a frozen river, but we are still ignorant of the nature of its substance. It looks to us like a river of frozen blood…”

Hassan Blasim, Majnun sahat al-Huriyya (The Madman of Freedom Square), Amman: Al-Mu’assassa Al-’Arabiyya lid-Dirasat wan-Nashr, 2012; Hassan Blasim’s The Iraqi Christ and The Corpse Exhibition, two acclaimed volumes of short stories translated into English by Jonathan Wright, are published by Comma Press in Manchester, UK and Penguin USA

iPhoneographic images © Youssef Rakha

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Al Ahram Weekly

Dream One: I was in the middle of doing something when my phone rang. A cousin (from real life I just reconnected with) wanted to visit and play games with him. In the dream his father was in the hospital and faring poorly, so I agreed. He came over shortly and began to set up a computer game which strongly resembled the old DOS game “Commander Keen.” The game, however, was not multi-player, despite our efforts. After watch each other play it for a short while, I resumed whatever mindless task I was performing previously while he played video games.

I found a package on my doorstop and I became two different people simultaneously. One part of me was “me” from the waking world, whereas the other part of me was a washed-up young adult who used to live her a while back ago. The package was meant for the other man but he did not live here anymore. The package was from his father who was sending him little mementos and trinkets. Under a bunch of stuff there was a small plastic baggie with some oblong blue pills with the simple note of “enjoy.” I think they were supposed to be Ativan (although in life, Ativan are pentagonal, white tablets). Another baggie had some nuggets of marijuana and dirty sowing needles. Since in real life I do not use and have not used any recreational nor non-prescribed medications, I was pretty nonplussed. In the end I offered them to my cousin and he happily accepted them, saying he messed up a batch of pot brownies earlier and wanted to remake them.

Dream Two: The dream shifted and my cousin and I were walking in some dark and shrouded streets. the streets were littered with trash and I knew we were in the shadow of a mental hospital. A loud voice clanged on the klaxon, announcing that a patient had escaped. The patient was dangerous to self and others and, if encountered, place the patient on citizen’s arrest and talk them down until help arrived. My cousin and I thought we saw a suspicious person dressed in white, perhaps like white hospital gowns, into a store. This place was a game store, resembling the quintessential game store of my youth (from real life) as if it was going out of business and all the stock was put in a business trailer.

After perusing through all the games, the building began to rapidly change into an Egyptian temple with a ceremony underway. Suddenly I was with a group of people I felt I knew and wanted to protect them. This place was evil and foul things were afoot. This was a temple to Set and a funerary ritual for an evil pharaoh was being conducted. Looking down at myself, I could see that I, and everyone else was dressed in the ceremonial white robe dress of an Egyptian priest. A throng of bare-chested guards in ceremonial costume were pall-bearing the large, ornate sarcophagus, waiting to drop it into a chamber below and seal it for eternity. A high priest walked by me and my group of comrades, stamping a brand of snakes onto our hands. I did not recognize the seal but I believed it meant we were chosen to be the final pall-bearers who would escort the sarcophagus into a chamber of snakes, being sealed inside to our deaths. A little vision of our deaths played out in my mind.

I did not wish to die in such a horrible fashion, so I tried to think of a plan to save the lot of us. I thought we could sneak outside during the ceremony, hoping no one would notice us. My plan was short lived and we were halted by another high priest in a ceremonial mask. He asked us why we were shirking from our duty. I replied that I did not want to die in the chamber of snakes. He corrected me and said the brand meant that we were to be the honorary “Snake Wranglers,” to ride the giant asp that lives in this temple. In my mind I could see the giant green asp slither out from the gilded temple walls; to ride it would also end in death. I politely declined and tried sneaking out group out of the temple again.

Towards the back of the temple, the scene changed more into a store lobby. Evil-looking, Boy Scout-like boys were walking and an out, as if patrolling. I knew if they saw us, we would be caught. I marshaled us back into the temple crowd to avoid detection. Now we all were in plain street clothes. Running on the count of three, I instructed us to bolt for the door. We ran and pushed past people. Outside I realized we were missing people from our group; now our group was five people, including me, plus three people trapped in the temple/store. Behind us was an expansive park with a rock wall cropping tall enough to hide people. I pointed at the rock wall, struck with how the orange sandstone stood against the black of the night sky, and told everyone to hid behind it. The little girl from the group was trapped and I was going in to rescue her. If I did not return within ten minutes, I told them run and get away from here and avoid capture. I turned to enter the store/temple.

As I walked up the ramp and through a set of glass double-doors, I secretly wished someone would rescue me if I was captured, but I would rather four people escape than to have everyone die to save me. In the alcove before the temple, I could see the little girl huddling in a corner. I knocked against the glass pane that separated us but she was gone. It appears as if she was transmogrified into a bracketed coat hanger. The sound of jangling keys behind me surprised me and I turned in horror to see a cultist had locked the door behind me. She had pink hair and was dressed as a ditzy punk-goth teenager. She was locking the building up for the main ceremony. Ahead us, past a second pair of glass double-doors, was a staircase descending into a ritualistic chamber of human sacrifice. The tile on the wall downward resembled a tight-knit network of tiles that simulated snake-skin. People in chains and some looking as if hypnotized were being escorted by the half-naked, buff guards holding ornate spears and wearing headdresses of Anubis.

I identified two of the enslaved people as being former comrades. I knew if I tried to rescue them that I would be caught and led down to the slaughter. At the moment, I realized I was in a dream and that if I were to die, I would wake up, but I knew the ritual sacrifice would be mental anguishing and painful, so I needed to escape. I charmed the punk-goth woman in front of me, stealthily sneaking the keys out of her hands; surreptitiously I held the keys behind me, trying to unlock the door while talking with her about her personal life and the temple. As soon as the door clicked open, I ran out to meet up with my party. It felt as if only three minutes had elapsed. Frantically running to the other side of the rock wall, I was shocked by what I saw, unable to comprehend it for a few horrible moments. All four people lay dead in the grass. People rand around me as if being hunted or chased, but I was transfixed by the horror. All my efforts, wasted. How could this have happened in a few short moments? If I had stayed with them, and not risked to save those imprisoned in the temple, could I have prevented the slaughter? My mind took in everything and their last few minutes played like a video in my mind.

The old man with us (who strangely resembles a professor from my program) had been with us our entire journey (we apparently had a back story of traveling for a few months) and he had become consumed with the notion that we were all sinners suffering from the weight of our sins. The man sought to free us from the bondage of our transgressions by mercy-killing all of us. I watched him slash the throats of each person, one by one. More gruesomely I watched him rape then murder the beautiful girl with us (this is no doubt inspired by a news article I read last night about an old man incestuously raping his girlfriend’s daughter before butchering her; this is what I get for reading the news before bed).

My vision snapped back to the dream and I tried to make sense of the people running around. A horde of the undead had been unleashed and were hunting down the people in the park. I began to run, trying to find a way out. A shambling, rotting green corpse accosted me. I grabbed it by the arm and flung it away. More of the undead approached, trying to surround me. They resembled poorly-dressed cosplayers, or people trying to dress like zombies. They were too close together and too numerous to try fight. I began to run. The most terrifying ones were the half-ripped apart ones, missing everything from mid-torso on down; they “swam” through the earth like an Olympic swimmer, using their grotesquely long and powerful arms to freestyle stroke through the dirt.

I outran a horde and found another survivor by a wall. There were large crates of many kinds of fireworks. After fumbling for a match, I began lighting as many of the fireworks to set off a chain reaction. I ignited a large crate of fountains, the sparks shooting up and triggering a barrage of rockets and other projectiles. I was trying to light an entire crate of sparklers before I awoke by my alarm, confused and dazed.

It finally stopped and we went downstairs and their was blood everywhere and we saw our dog, Gabby (who passed away at age 16, which is good for a dalmatian, in august of 2012) lying on her bed bleeding eveywhere. Who ever was in the house, cut open our dog’s stomach. I remember screaming at my dad for not doing something about it and then I remember crying and blaming myself. He said that he did not want us to get killed. I grabbed her and carried her to my jeep and I remember calling the 24 hour vet that was about 15 minutes away. My dad said that she would never make it and we have to put her down and he started to cry. I told him no, she was still young (and I think she was int he dream) and that is when I woke up. 

It’s just the dogs and I for a few days and at around 3:30, they woke me up because it was feeding time. Its the usual time. The dogs were in Steven’s and I room, on my blanket, and she punched the bed, haha. So yea, thank god because I woke up crying and screaming. I really miss my puppy. so much <3

Well, the second was a dream and this was allot better. I was at my parents house and out of no where, the doorbell rang and there was Steven at the door. Now, in the dream, their was a Navy base about 20 minutes away from our house, and he was at that base for something. Anyway, he said they dropped random officers off at random places and they had to run back to base. He said he was dropped of down the street and he came up to our house to say hi…and eat food. My mom ironically made dinner about five minutes before and he ate it real quick and thanked my mom. I said “I haven’t seen you in so long, god i cannot wait for graduation” and he smiled and kissed me long and hard, his sweat running down my face and he said he will see me soon. I smiled as I saw him run off and then I said “I cannot believe that just happened..”

Again, puppies woke me up at around 4:30 to go outside. 

It was an emotional night, as you can guess. 

Immanuel Kant defined his theories of the sublime in the ‘Analytic of the Sublime’, in his Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790). For Kant, the sublime can occur in two forms, the mathematical and the dynamical sublime. In the mathematical sublime the imagination fails to comprehend a formless, limitless or ‘absolutely great’ object whilst in the dynamical sublime the self is confronted by fear or insignificance when imagination attempts to comprehend a vast power. Both result in an indirect pleasure that reaffirms the self and allows the mind to be empowered as it spiritually and morally transcends the object of limitless form or power. Literary figures in the romantic period often sought their own sublime moments, revealing the subjectivity that Kant implied but not necessarily strictly adhering to the theories. In both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) and Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) we are presented with sublime moments that invert Kantian expectations. The texts confront a sublime in which the self’s transcendental empowerment is succeeded by a power of prevention, or a disempowering sublime.

***

In his confessions, Thomas De Quincey recollects both how he became addicted to opium and his experiences under its influence. We can see from De Quincey’s essays that he viewed the sublime within his own ideologies, nationalism and literature. He described two types of literature: that which teaches or the literature of knowledge, and that which moves or the literature of power, and regarded the “sublime as a rare force.” De Quincey considered Milton with very high esteem and ascertained that Paradise Lost- a poem of towering majesty and vast abyss’ being created, discovered and then formed- to be a “central force amongst forces.”^[1]

As it becomes evident in the ‘Pleasures of Opium’, for De Quincey, opium is an agent that heightens sensual capacity and releases an already dormant intellect; an intellect that concerns literature, art and opera. One of his reasons for drinking a glass of laudanum about ‘once in three weeks’ (Confessions 45) was due to Josephina Grassini’s performances at the Opera, which evidently gave De Quincey an immense feeling of pleasure. Whilst conveying his pleasure he incidentally insinuates that a Turk could feel half his pleasure. De Quincey exposes his xenophobic tendencies, labelling the subject of his comparison as ‘Barbarians,’ and also his nationalistic pride claiming the superiority of an Englishman’s intellectual pleasure. However, this does progress to De Quincey revealing his knowledge of subjectivity,

“The mistake of most people is to suppose that it is by the ear they communicate with music, and, therefore, that they are purely passive to its effects. But this is not so: it is by the re-action of the mind upon the notices of the ear, (the matter coming by the sense, the form from the mind) that the pleasure is constructed: and therefore it is that people of equally good ear differ so much in this point from one another.” (Confessions 46)

The music is heard by the ear but its power is composed by the mind. It is the experience and knowledge of the self which creates pleasure.  In truth, De Quincey realised that the value of art is dependent on opinions that are approved by society. It is a fine blend of subjectivity and universality.^[2] Still, he continues,

“It is sufficient to say, that a chorus, &c. of elaborate harmony, displayed before me, as in a piece of arras work, the whole of my past life- not, as if recalled by an act of memory, but as if present and incarnated in the music: no longer painful to dwell upon: but the detail of its incidents removed, or blended in some hazy abstraction; and its passions exalted, spiritualized, and sublimed. All this was to be had for five shillings.”   (Confessions 46)

Under opium’s influence De Quincey experiences the sublime in an overwhelming moment of pleasure that recalls his entire life as an arras. His imagination is not threatened and still the music and opium induce a sublime moment that reasserts the self when no assertion is needed. It is a sublime of direct pleasure. The opium releases a dormant imagination that filters the positive pleasure from the negative pleasure and the self is initially confronted completely by the positive. His mind discovers harmony when it should fail. A similar harmony can be seen in Wordsworth’s unity of the poetic imagination in The Prelude: Book Sixth, in which the mind actively creates power. However, for Wordsworth it is the similarity between nature and imagination’s creativity that is sublime. De Quincey does not compare his mind’s capacity with nature but forms unity within itself, all for ‘only five shillings!’

In response to this direct pleasure De Quincey later experiences inflictions upon his body in the ‘Pains of Opium’. Whilst De Quincey is evidently still in awe of the drug’s effects upon the mind’s faculties he does reveal the negativity that has succeeded his empowerment. He describes the opium addict being “powerless as an infant.’’ (Confessions 67) He is powerless and youth like, meaning he is weaker, less knowledgeable and more susceptible to intimidating influences. He suffers from nightmares that afflict him in four different manners- lucid dreams and night terrors, the Miltonic decent into an abyss, the distortion of space, time and architecture and the recollections of his life, yet again. Before he was a ‘powerless infant’ the drug’s effects could be composed in unity by De Quincey. His weakened body is unable to subdue the parts and the parts overcome the self. The resulting dreams are not of a monstrous form as can be seen illustrated in Henry Fuseli’s ‘The Nightmare’, but appear as limitlessly repeated mechanical landscapes.

This dream De Quincey describes “conflates the series of sixteen plates into one, collapses numerous figures into the same person and…[the] artist has failed to achieve Kantian freedom.” The sixteen plates appear to have been almost collected, at least proving the mind tried to create a harmonising structure like music and the Opera. However the artist De Quincey failed and the landscape is distorted as he and Piranesi become imprisoned in the eternal cycle that De Quincey imagines. He indeed feels an “infinity of the world with him,”[3] but this is an infinity that, whilst he has created he has little control over, it is colossal in its imaginative prowess. The body and mind are weakened and confronted by a formlessness that frightens and even horrifies. If the Kantian sublime is that of a confrontation causing an indirect pleasure, De Quincey’s sublime throughout the text is an inversion of this. De Quincey’s sublime consists of a direct pleasure that is much later followed by a confrontation of the self’s limits which disempowers the self literally through the body. Describing his dreams of descending into dark abysses De Quincey explains, “nor did I, by waking, feel that I had re-ascended.” He becomes completely disempowered and is unable to pacify his own mind. This disempowerment is the self’s realisation that the enhancement initially received was due to a reliance on the external agency, opium. The use of the drug immediately displaces any supremacy of the mind, be it spiritual or intellectual, as any genius accessed or brilliance felt is essentially an effect of opium. Whether or not it proves imagination’s faculties or releases dormant knowledge, its dependency disempowers any supremacy completely.

***

In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley presents the eponymous protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, primarily with a sublime subject rather than an object. The Kantian and Burkean sublime are typically concerned with vast abysses or titanic mountains; however Frankenstein’s creation causes sublimity, but can also be subject to the sublime. Kant’s and Burke’s effects of the sublime stem from the moment of transcendence or realisation of safety whilst Mary Shelley creates an agent of the sublime which can physically thwart the subject. The creature’s colossal structure becomes a force of disempowerment by embodying the power that is transcended in Kant’s sublime with the ability to distance itself in relation to the Burkean sublime. The object becomes a subject, the force and fear of a mountain has the means of motion, discourse and unrelenting destruction.

Recollecting a scene in which he witnessed a thunderstorm at the age of fifteen, an age in which his intrigue, intellect and imagination were together united, he realises the potent power of nature. His galvanising studies, thus, are given birth to, or at least sparked, by the lightning that obliterates the tree stump. Nature’s force compels him to utilise such a power. The awe of Kant’s sublime transposes to the genius of creativity for Frankenstein. The scene is complete with thunder bursts in the heavens as he watches with ‘curiosity and delight.’ (Frankenstein 48) This delight is directly relatable to Burke’s theories, as Frankenstein witnesses a stream of fire emanate from an Oak about twenty yards away. The distance creates a spectacle which prevents the scene being completely horrific to Frankenstein. He is also momentarily blinded from viewing the actual act of destruction by a ‘dazzling light’ which leaves behind only the stump. On visiting the victim of nature’s power the following day he marvels at the lack of chaos but instead witnesses a scene of complete obliteration. By coincidence a visitor of the family, ‘a man of great research in natural philosophy and galvanism,’ (Frankenstein 48) introduces Frankenstein to ideas that will form the course of his future.

At the age of seventeen Frankenstein is faced with another happening that determines his fate, as he is faced with mortality and loss in the death of his mother. His disbelief that “the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard,” (Frankenstein 50) the disbelief of loss and deterioration, encourages Frankenstein to discover immortality and desire the act of creation. Here, the self fails to comprehend a concept as powerful and life threatening as death. Frankenstein is reaffirming his mind’s power through creation, defeating the possibility that he, or his fellow beings, can be themselves defeated by a great unknown such as death.

Frankenstein furthers his studies in Ingolstadt under supervision of the university’s lecturers, whilst simultaneously planning to utilise his newly discovered knowledge and newly obtained apparatus in his bid to overcome nature. His intellect and fancy create a sublime moment comparable to a Wordsworthian egotistical sublime that realises the greatness of the mind’s creativity;

“No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bonds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I thought, that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.” (Frankenstein 58)

There are two means of countering mortality presented here, one gained through remembrance of creation and another from a literal reanimation. The former is a desire of many authors and poets, and one that Percy Shelley would have undoubtedly impressed on Mary’s literary output[4]. Birthing a creation that could be revered and remembered for generations was an ideal that strongly occupied the Romantic Movement. Embodying a literal Kantian transcendence, Frankenstein enforces his mind with his own creative genius through imagination. He viewed the fire from the heavens destroy the oak and imagines inverting the process to a constructive development.

“How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe; or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! – Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath.” (Frankenstein 60)

Faced with his creation Frankenstein’s sublime imagination is replaced by ideas of the beautiful. In this case the creation’s appearance incites horror which annihilates any awe or magnificence from his actions causing Frankenstein to ironically exclaim “Great God!” in hindsight. Frankenstein does not overcome death through transcendence; he reaffirms the mind literally and commits his intellectual creation to nature. Frankenstein creates something unnatural, and like Mary Wollstonecraft’s inability to find beauty in manmade structures, Frankenstein only feels disgust and fear in the face of his unnatural creation.

The obliterated oak is symbolic of the natural failing beneath a force from the heavens, or from a Godly power, whilst Frankenstein’s creation is able to contain this power. The limitlessness and unimaginable power is roughly bound as his yellow skin scarcely covers his internal organs, and it appears the creation is literally bursting from within. The monster embodies the horror which is experienced with the sublime as an unnatural new species. An idea and body that once appeared beautiful to Frankenstein, is born and given to nature creating a being with a far more potent power than Frankenstein could have imagined.

It was a fashion in the romantic period for the poets to converse with mountains, for the want of a relationship with an object. From Coleridge’s Chamouny; the Hour before Sunrise. A Hymn and Percy Shelley’s response Mont Blanc we see expressions of self-indulgence with figurative responses. As these poems are often concerned with allegories or subjective understandings,  if the object, the mountains, were to literally respond the poem would become absurd or horrific. This idea was applied by Keats in his poem Upon my life, Sir Nevis, I am piqued^[5], a comic poem which echoes these relationship seeking poems, in particular Wordsworth’s To Joanna. Whilst Wordsworth muses on the symbolism of an echo returning to the speaker’s ear, Keats gives Ben Nevis a voice and the gift of motion. Mrs. Cameron, an overweight woman whose servants help haul her up the mountain, reprimands Ben Nevis for not displaying a similar effort in return. Comically the mountain responds by literally waking and moving to kiss her, an action which causes her to faint. Ben Nevis presents Keats’ failure to find an agreeable Wordsworthian Nature within mountainous areas and his poem acts as a fantastically absurd perspective on the Romantic era’s self-indulgent search for an agreeable sublime nature. ^[6]

Mary Shelley toys with a similar idea with Frankenstein’s excursion through Chamounix, a location which has been the focus of many contemplative literary efforts. Faced with the death of Justine and his younger brother, William, Frankenstein is burdened with the results of his creative activity as he determines that his creation was the cause. Shelley essentially crafts the entire chapter around differing theories of the sublime;

“The solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial nature was broken only by the brawling waves, or the fall of some vast fragments, the thunder sound of the avalanche, or the cracking, reverberated along the mountains, of the accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been a plaything in their hands. These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me from all littleness of feeling; and although they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquilised it.” (Frankenstein 90-91)

Nature elevates him and affirms his grandeur as his literal and spiritual elevation subdues the horrors that affect the self. The following day he ascends Montavert through “thick mists” (Frankenstein 91) and witnesses Mont Blanc, a mountain which from a distance fills his heart with “something like joy” (Frankenstein 92). Shelley sets Frankenstein in two positions in which he first experiences a Kantian sublime and the following day a Burkean sublime. Frankenstein attempts to converse with the wandering spirits, as he emulates the Romantic poets, requesting a spiritual relationship them. However, unlike Keats’ comically animated Ben Nevis, Mary Shelley presents Frankenstein with his own reanimated “devil.” The creation is now an eluding daemon with the ability to converse intelligently rather than the clumsy new-born that was witnessed in the creation scene. Indeed the creation’s plea to his creator, “how can I move thee” (Frankenstein 94) is ironic as he has already born an unrelenting force upon Frankenstein, albeit a disempowering force rather than the sympathy he desires.  The creation bears the overwhelming ability which the mountainous landscapes lacked. Kant argues that due to the relation between the colossal and the monstrous only that of ‘rude nature’ can ‘exhibit the sublime’[7]. However, as an embodiment of the sublime, the creation is able to respond and build upon the relationship which the Romantics yearned for. Together, he and Frankenstein represent the sublime and the struggle between theoretical interpretations of aesthetics. Is it not true that the boundlessness of Kant’s sublime is represented in the imagination that creates life and the reanimated figure that overcome death?[8]  His colossal stature and his disagreeable features are deemed daemonic as Frankenstein judges him solely by appearance. Admittedly, the creation was the murderer of William, but this was merely assumed by Frankenstein amidst his complaints of Justine’s unfair trial and Judges. Frankenstein suffers from a disempowering sublime due to his inability to subdue his own creation at will. The safety of a Burkean sublime is thwarted once the creation advances towards him “with superhuman speed” and the capabilities of the mind are threatened by their own creative product. The creation is more than merely a mountain; he is Frankenstein’s manmade mountain, threat and disempowering sublime.

Frankenstein’s creation becomes an outcast and his actions are prompted by his lack of relationship. Paul Sherwin argues that creating an analogy by the amalgamation of an abandoned Adam and an ostracised Satan of Paradise Lost is a failure on Shelley’s behalf[9]  as she doesn’t quite distinguish which analogy she wishes to develop. As a new species who could be better for the creation to compare himself to other than the ostracised angel and the first man? Paradise Lost is oft used as an analogy in literature and being one of the books that Frankenstein’s creation learns language from, it seems fitting he should learn the story from a ‘man-made’ novel rather than God’s Bible. Regardless of this, it cannot be denied that Shelley succeeds in evoking sympathy from the reader. The creation’s isolation and loneliness, whilst not excusing his actions, certainly gives an understanding of his excessive behaviour.

Frankenstein seeks isolation during his creativity and during his expedition through the sublime scenery of Chamonix, both being moments of disempowerment in typically sublime set pieces .It is almost as though his self-affirmation requires a state of solitude. It is this isolation which he imposes on the unwilling creation when denying him the paternal company he craves. Mellor claims, in “feminine Romantic tradition, the sublime combines with the beautiful to produce, not the experience of…solitary, visionary transcendence sought (however futilely) by several Romantic poets, but an experience of communion between two different people, that very “sympathy” or domesticated sublimity…[called] the essence of “reason and humanity”.” [10] She further dictates that great intellectual achievement derives from this domesticity, and from the daily practice of friendship and domestic affections. [11]

We see from the creation’s voyeuristic narration of the De Lacey family that he envies the simplistic sociality of friendship, companionship or family. The family represent the creature’s unknown, and companionship swiftly becomes his sole objective. He witnesses a power from which he is separated from and which, from experience, has the potency to harm. In a sense, this microcosm is a social sublime, or as Mellor calls it the ‘domestic sublime.’

Shelley exploits the Romantic fascination with the aesthetics of beauty, as the creation is deemed a monster purely based on appearance by Frankenstein, the De Laceys and general society.  The creation becomes a masculine sublime due to his alienation and Frankenstein’s refusal to create a mate, or an Eve, is an attempt to subdue the masculine sublime progressing to other generations; the new species is a literal force that threatens to disempower ‘man’. Although he prevents the threat on man, a universal sublime, he is unable to subdue the creation, his personal sublime. The creation that pursued a feminine, domestic sublime becomes a monster that embodies horror. The creation becomes the product of the masculine sublime and physically and psychologically begins to disempower Frankenstein. Shelley’s feminine creation becomes a masculine monster whose sole purpose is to disempower Frankenstein, his creator.

Mary Shelley appears to have built her novel in an attempt to create a pastiche of the sublime theories which concerned her contemporaries and recent predecessors. Frankenstein’s vast array of sublime moments at least proves she was very aware of its differing effects and the Romantics’ fascination for it. The course of action in the novel, and Frankenstein’s decline, emulate an exact inversion of Kant’s aesthetics of the sublime as Frankenstein is initially affirmed, or spiritually elevated, but later disempowered by the creative product of his affirmation; the sublime subject capable of disempowerment through a destructive masculine force.

So far, I have noticed pelvic cramping, irritability, and mood swings. I have also had really odd dreams. I consulted Dr. Google and didn’t find any related side effects that would explain the dreams. Maybe it’s just my brain creating odd, vivid dreams. Last night I had the dream within a dream. I was alone in Florida and distressed about something (I don’t remember now). I saw one of my best friends, her mother, and another friend sitting down to dinner at a restaurant. I ran up to her mother and hugged her. She asked me what was the matter, and I said I just needed a mom at that moment. She hugged me tighter. I was aware this was a dream. Then I “woke up” from that dream and was in my bedroom except instead of my husband being in my bed, it was my older sister. I felt relieved to be “awake” until I heard a maniacal laugh in the corner of my room. I remembered the laugh from my “dream.” I screamed and my sister sat up and cradled me in her arms while I sobbed. This did NOT feel like a dream. It felt real. Then I woke up in my bedroom confused because I was laying a different direction on the bed and Hubby was hugging me from behind. He kissed my temple and told me I was safe. I felt uneasy like there was still something lurking in a dark corner of my bedroom.

I still felt weird in my bedroom this morning as I was alone in there getting dressed. That dream really shook me. I am glad my nightmares are getting to be less frequent but the realism in them is horrible. When I finally do wake up I am confused and scared. Before this year I only remember one other time in my life with really vivid dreams, but they weren’t scary dreams. My junior year of high school I was extremely depressed and had very vivid dreams just as I was waking up in the morning. I attributed that to being a teenager and trying to figure out what kind of person I was going to be. I’m not sure why all of sudden this year I’ve had such a string of vivid dreams. In March I had a few weeks of vivid dreams and now this week so far they’re back. Does anyone know what causes vivid, life-like dreams?

There were a few times yesterday that I felt invisible. That is the worst feeling in the world. I was taking break with a friend of mine and he asked me how my weekend was. Before I could answer he made a comment about a bike we walked past. Then he talked for the rest of break about his weekend. Then when I was at home, there was a story on TV about how much senior pictures cost now. Grandma said something about her kids’ senior pictures. Hubby responded to her and then I said something about mine and they both completely ignored me. Grandma sneezed a little while later and I said “bless you” then I sneezed shortly afterwards…nothing! The dog sneezes, Hubby and Grandma both tell him “bless you”. These seem really small now that I’m writing about them but I was so hurt. I wanted to go lock myself in my bedroom. I am not sure if it’s the Provera or if I really had a right to feel ignored. It doesn’t really matter anymore but I hate that feeling of being invisible. Like no one cares if you exist or not. I’d rather someone was completely rude to me than to completely ignore me.

Oh well. Today is a new day. And so far it’s going well. I am determined to have a good day! I hope you all have a wonderful day too! Be well friends!

,

Current mood: Problem-solving

Goal: Replace the ‘schifezze’ sweets with healthier treats!

Franz von Stuck, The Kiss of the Sphinx, after 1895.
Charcoal, black stone and white highlights on light-brown paper,55 x 48.5 cm.
Private collection.

I’m not entirely ashamed to say I’ve read the entire Twilight series, as it gives me ground to stand on whilst making this argument. Surely the portrayal of vampires (non-existent, I knnooowwww) as kind, loving, caring creatures who don’t prey on weak humans, but rather stalk them in a romantic, sexy, exhibition of ‘true love’ is an unhealthy view to give young girls (as well as us older girls who are still easily sucked into teen fiction). It’s NEVER okay to be or get stalked. At the end of it all, we’re supposed to focus on the heroines of these stories as some kind of role models, and frankly I’d much rather cheer Buffy on than be anything like the ever-needy, self-destructive Bella.

Johann Heinrich Füssli, The Nightmare, 1781.
Oil on canvas.101.6 x 126.7 cm.
Founders Society, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit.

It’s almost as if Meyer took Buffy and turned her character upside down – giving her weak, unstable characteristics and making her dependent on, for all intents and purposes, monsters. Sure, Buffy fell in love with not one, but two said-monsters, but it was not without grief, struggle, death, and a hell of a lot of heartbreak. The worst thing Edward the Shiny does to Bella is leave her for ‘her own good’ – which, of course, does not stick. I say, give us William the Bloody and Angelus over glitter any day. At least we can be sure of their dark capabilities and not have to wonder if they’re going to eat our loved ones when we’re not looking.

William Bouguereau, Dante and Virgil, 1850.
Oil on canvas 280.5 x 225.3 cm.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

I could go on and on about the unrealistic expectations readers/viewers are given about Prince Charming in relation to Edward as well as the supposed innocence of werewolves, but these posts can only be so long. Visit the Musée d’Orsay to see The Angel of Odd and get your fill of true dark romanticism until something better than Twilight comes about. The exhibition will end on 9 June, so hurry!

-Le Lorrain Andrews

from you embrace,

suffocating

under your tight clutches.

The things you showed me

wrecked what I believed in,

took over my whole mind.

And I can’t

erase them.

You haunt me

in my every step,

blocking the sun,

hiding my shadow.

You made sure

to be unforgettable

and so you were,

in my every moment.

And when the sun lies

in its resting place,

you become

the master of my being.

At your will

I do the things you want,

see the things I fear.

For I am

powerless

in your presence. 

By The Rivers of Hell (Click to enlarge and save)

We could play by the water, sandy bones at our feet

You could hand me life in your laughter, let me stand in your wake

We could skip rocks, make waves, rock the boat

I could be your scapegoat, pulling you down further

We could drown each other by the rivers of hell

You could pull out my slivers, send shivers through my skin

We could slither in winter until the glimmer of bitter end

I could wither in a western breeze, watch light like glitter freeze

Count your lucky stars

We’re not quite there yet

Not yet

Almost