...
[All Rights Reserved. Steal and Die.]
:... From Genesis Through Revelation: Playlist #2 ...:
I Want My Innocence Back by Emilie Autumn
Keep On Runnin' by Cat Power
Mad World by Gary Jules
I Grieve [For You] by Peter Gabriel
O Come, O Come Emmanuel by Enya
Love to Be Loved by Peter Gabriel
Sadness by Nine Inch Nails
The Half Killed by Dario Marianelli
Keep On Runnin' by Cat Power
Mad World by Gary Jules
I Grieve [For You] by Peter Gabriel
O Come, O Come Emmanuel by Enya
Love to Be Loved by Peter Gabriel
Sadness by Nine Inch Nails
The Half Killed by Dario Marianelli
:... If Prometheus Wept in Winter: The Wisdom of Prometheus Bound ...:
"Prom: I made men cease from contemplating death.
"[The state described is that of men who, through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage. That state, the parent of all superstition, fostered the slavish awe in which Zeus delighted. Prometheus, representing the active intellect of man, bestows new powers, new interests, new hopes which at last divest them from that fear.]"
"[The state described is that of men who, through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage. That state, the parent of all superstition, fostered the slavish awe in which Zeus delighted. Prometheus, representing the active intellect of man, bestows new powers, new interests, new hopes which at last divest them from that fear.]"
. . .
Consider Prometheus, after all. Chained to the rocks for millions of years, disemboweled each day by a raptor and left each night to contemplate the coming torture. One might say that this was not Hell, however, for Hell is and has always been known as the absence of God. And Prometheus had God, didn't he? Indeed. It was God who chained him to the rocks.
Some Notes.
I keep going back to Dostoyevsky's "Idiot". I scribbled the word yurodivi in the margin of my letters notebook and watched it evolve, twirled my pen between chilly fingers as the thought spread like cold breath across the page. Holy fool is applicable - at best, the only position for which he is suited. I read bits of the novel. I read bits of "Paint it Black" as well, which is always fictionally inspiring if damned bleak. Its honesty redeems it. There is not an ounce of pretension within those pages, not the hint of a trace of hauteur... just all the things we've never asked and all the things we've never said and it's such a pity to watch unfold. Such a pity to face at the end of the day. I keep writing despite the fact that I've not a clue where I'm going... original plotlines have been scratched, rebuilt, left crumbling and sans completion... only to be resumed again. I write daily towards an ending upon which I still haven't decided, past plot points which beg to be cut, and the writing itself is not writing. It's all elongated sketch, messy and dreamy and hopeless. I wrote the very first sketch of all this nonsense about a year ago, on a page in the middle of my notebook. It expands forward, ever forward, toward the front of the book. Irréversible. My story runs backwards.
- mood:
drained - music:Mad World by Gary Jules
I spoke with Dr. Shaw in class on Thursday, and he made some truly intriguing - if Nietzschian - points regarding faith. Catholicism, he suggested, is a religion founded by slaves for slaves... designed to make them feel better about being slaves. Because they could not realistically expect their lot to improve in this life, they dwelt on the afterlife. It's a fundamentally unhealthy religion, he told us in lecture, one founded upon the most repugnant principals of masochism: it idolizes the image of a man nailed to a cross, nailed through the hands and feet. (Consider Drakulić - J., akimbo, says "You look like a whore": but S. knows that by accepting the pain with open arms, one can fool oneself into ceasing to feel it.) There is a decided emphasis on denial and mortification - it makes the suffering worthwhile. It makes the suffering mean something.
. . .
:.. To Find Patience in Grace (And End Up Nothing) ...:
cuivus dolori remedium est patrentia
[patience is the cure for all suffering]
:.. To Find Patience in Grace (And End Up Nothing) ...:
cuivus dolori remedium est patrentia
[patience is the cure for all suffering]
:... Miroslav Satan ...:
. . .
:.. In Darkness Let Me Dwell ...:
The Code of Canon Law establishes that, "Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion" (can. 915).
Excommunication may result from:
- apostasy
- heresy
- schism
- desecration of the eucharist
- violence against the pope
- ordination of bishops sans papal mandate
- violation of the seal of confession
Something possibly useful for later:
- Interdict may result from attempting to marry while having a perpetual vow of chastity
In other news, I wrote to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to ask about the alteration of canon law after Vatican II. Why, you ask? Because I enjoy making men of the cloth uncomfortable. I worry that I shall get some hopelessly bureaucratic form letter in return, thanking me for my correspondence and wishing me joy and contentment in the Lord's blessed light and so forth. NPR gave me a helpful snippet, either way: The Vatican defines heresy as "the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine or catholic faith, or it is likewise and obstinate doubt concerning the same." ... The drowning may hold up after all.
. . .
[I propose a new bout in the word war, Imp. An additional 5,000 words by next Saturday at midnight, certo? Say yes. Voglio il tramezzo, and I won't have the motivation to write otherwise. ;)]
On the topic of religion - we were on the topic of religion? - I watched Constantine tonight. It was a bit of a blast.
On the topic of religion - we were on the topic of religion? - I watched Constantine tonight. It was a bit of a blast.
- mood:
tired - music:Corelli Adagio from Concerto G - Master & Commander Soundtrack
"Fallen angels who were not good enough to be saved, nor bad enough to be lost" say the peasantry...
I read my Tower of Souls notes this afternoon, avoided the musical [critical] analysis paper and the piano practice like plague. Threw the sheet music and the textbooks to one side just for today: today I was going to be a writer again. It was going to be like old times, good times when I was eleven, twelve, thirteen and spent every hour of every day buried in a notebook. It was going to be. But I woke up late and did a bit of homework after all, and by the time I got to my desk I was a bit sad, a bit distanced. So I sat on the floor, heaved the box of notebooks out from under my bed and casually reread the top few clumps of writing. It is the most beautiful feeling to recognize something - something good - that you wrote years ago. It's like visiting an old friend. Like going home. It was a lovely wreck of a novel: the purification of the reincarnation cycle, the Death, The Dream Keeper, Mikhyl the Arch-King, angels did battle with humans and we had Tjaii [who was Majhisti, who was the Death's incarnation] waiting to kill a man - "Go to Hell," he whispered just before pulling the trigger, "and fight a Demon." It was quite a thing to write. And on the topic of going to Hell...
:... It's The Cleanest I've Been...:
More Cast.
- Miroslav Satan: A friend... possibly. He serves two purposes. A dark angel like his namesake, and devoid of divinity. He is what he is, does what he does, and ultimately seves dual purposes: catalyst, antagonist. A friend from South Slavia. The name was nicked without hesitation from a boy who lives in my town. I was reading the newspaper one day and came upon his name. He had done something grand at the local high school, apparently. And the name caught my attention: Miroslav Satan, in a little Ukrainian town full of little Ukrainian babas making the sign of the cross at him. Poor thing. I love that these characters are snagged straight from reality, from people I know, people I know of, people I love indirectly and from a distance. (I do believe that there is a Czech Mr. Satan somewhere on the professional ice hockey front, but his name is spelled with the caroned Š, and thus it becomes Shah'ton. I may or may not nick it). For the purposes of our narrative, however, our Miroslav will be black-haired and slick as silk and suave - a thin,dark Livny to contrast Serafeim: S. is a metaphorical angel, M. is a man... an occasionally delinquent man. He hangs out in bars, swears too much... less violent than Livny, more ridiculous. A healthy dose of the Tovish Uncle goes into this fellow. ... He spends a great deal of effort attempting to drag our frail protagonist into the abandonment of his vows of chastity. Odd enough that our Miroslav is the most wretchedly [animalistically, naturally] human of the lot of them. And so continues the theme and postulation that humanity is the most inferior in the divine hierarchy [...Look at me, says an appalled and fallen Lucifer - I'm almost a human being.]
. . .
I've been trying to figure out the clergy are involved, with little luck. I don't know how far I want to take this, or how high. And I am, of course, out of time. The NaNovel, which is never written in November, will - of course - spill over into the subsequent years. I love how useless I am on deadlines. And no, you may not have a word count. Excerpts, next time, if you're nice to me.
- mood:
sad - music:Growing Up by Peter Gabriel
Something interesting which I discovered the other day, wandering aimlessly about cyberspace when I should have been doing music for theatre homework. A dream symbol dictionary: it informed me that dreaming of any sort of cross or crucifix indicates (1) joy, happiness and fufillment after a long and difficult struggle, or (2) a crossroads implying the obvious: two possible paths lie ahead, and a choice must be made. On the subject, Frost manages to be useful for once: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood / And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth...
Poetry keeps attacking me from the most unlikely places, from Milosz anthologies and books I've nicked from the library. They bleed together like watered-down dye and keeping leaking into my narrative. It is the nature of art, beauty, and divinity to be clean, implies Lang... Wat comments upon the beauty of breathless lungs and Sexton describes the perversity of a God who unties the knot of double hunger in mortals. Memories keep bubbling up from nowhere: a nun who once told me the story of a woman who so loved God that she took communion thrice a day; He decided to test this extraordinarily loyal woman by causing her to bleed for forty years from her fingernails and toes. ["If that's what He does to the people who love him," says Eleanore, "You're off the hook."] Our protagonist would doubtless end up in the realm of "If that's what he does to the people who love him, imagine the retribution which will face me in Hell." ... It positively begs to be thrown into the mix. I initially imagined that I would be too far afield, too out of the loop to write about Roman Catholicism, but I'm starting to realize that it isn't the denomination that matters. It's the small graces, the miniature downfalls, the personal failures which hold the story, not the language of the mass. It's all about the humanity.
:.. [Tell] the Priest, He's the Doctor, He Can Handle the Shocks: Playlist #1...:
Mercy Street by Peter Gabriel
Leave by The Swell Season
Walk Away by The Nadas
Sweet Religion by Imogen Heap
Near To You by A Fine Frenzy
In Darkness Let Me Dwell by Sting & Karamazov
Furious Angels by Rob Dougan
I'm Not Driving Anymore by Rob Dougan
Angel by Massive Attack
Borrowed Time by A Fine Frenzy
I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston
Terrible Lie by Nine Inch Nails
Nothing At All by Rob Dougan
Puis Qu'en Oubli by Guillame de Marchaut
When the Angels Fall by Sting
Clubbed to Death by Rob Dougan
Darkness by Peter Gabriel
The Road to Chicago [from the Perdition Soundtrack]
The Hill by Marketa Irglova
Sakrelig by Eisbrecher
Mein Blut by Eisbrecher
- mood:
okay - music:As Vesta Was Descending by Thomas Weelkes
So beautiful lungs are, breathless! How calm, when the wrists proclaim
no pulse and the saint meets his maker in a laconic dark. What a clean murder.
A stillbirth from the outset, this Nestorian rhythm, these shattered pieces
of much-loved ikon which shattered so easily against the headboard.
The sheets smell of tea and roses, the breath on his neck so shallow with strain...
Perhaps, after a million and a half petits morts, he will have tasted enough
sweet poison to safely die of shame.
. . .
no pulse and the saint meets his maker in a laconic dark. What a clean murder.
A stillbirth from the outset, this Nestorian rhythm, these shattered pieces
of much-loved ikon which shattered so easily against the headboard.
The sheets smell of tea and roses, the breath on his neck so shallow with strain...
Perhaps, after a million and a half petits morts, he will have tasted enough
sweet poison to safely die of shame.
. . .
Word Count: 265 words. It's what I had, scribbled in the margins of physics notes and lying over top of last week's calculus. And even though I was supposed to begin on the 5th, I lose three days to insanity and the pretense of fencing. But here I am! At home, at last: avec laptop, tea, and the cat... in one of those dark, semi-expansive moods so conducive to writing tragedy. Of course I left my notebook back at university, but tonight I plan to be rather brilliant and Chekhovian and wing it.
Not even a school night - who needs sleep? Let's get this party started.
Not even a school night - who needs sleep? Let's get this party started.
- mood:
irritated - music:Will You Follow Me? by Rob Dougan
NaNo '08: November 5 - December 5
Go my total lack of multi-tasking abilities! Also. I keep writing back-stories and dialogues in physics lecture...
- mood:
distressed - music:Mercy Street by Peter Gabriel
:... You Mean Everything To Me...:
A Central Cast of Two.
- Serafeim Křehký: literally, "delicate angel". Our frail protagonist who acts as one of his own antagonists - damaged goods, and a psychological wreck. I don't want him to be a common priest, we have misconceptions about priests and he's fundamentally too young to be believable in the role. I'm leaning towards Laity, then, some form of consecrated life within an obscure monastic order. Perhaps. It needs to be self-isolating enough to make his return to the secular world sufficiently messy. Interdict or excommunication, I haven't quite decided which to use. The former, perhaps, or a withdrawn excommunication - if this evolves into him returning to his previous position, I'm going to have to figure out a way around penalty and Catholic law.
- Eleanore Toivonen: the love interest. Or, more accurately, the one interested in love. She's atheist, and embodies the finer themes of love: patient, kind, and warm. Hers is a human warmth which has been thus far missing from the existence of our protagonist, but it is no match for divine warmth - her perpetual struggle to free the abovementioned from his emotional and psychological baggage conflicts frequently with her desire to disentangle herself from religion entirely. She is the only female character I have ever written who has not been pure good or pure evil. Rather complex, flawed and confused; possessing a keen desire to protect and to save, and yet frequently unwilling to wholly accept the role of arbiter of sanity. Beautifully imperfect, beautifully human. A good contrast for our angel. The given name just happens to be my very favorite name on the face of this earth. The surname is derived from the old Finnish for 'hope'. She's one of the good guys.
. . .
There is a slew of additional characters - religious and secular, noteworthy and vague, antagonistic and helpful - and they shall be rambled over when I have more time and lucidity. Serafeim and Eleanore are the only two constant personas, however. The rest are shadows, ghosts, and guests which debut in flurries of literary leitmotiv and exit in anonymity. I spent some of my time between classes today trying to pin down the format of chapters, parts, points of view: I know the story and where it goes, but I'm not quite sure how I should be telling it. In the tradition of Konrad, I get the feeling that this novel will be beyond abstract. And on that note. I keep thinking of Draculic's The Taste of a Man. Is that how Serafeim ends up? So far off the edge of the map that the map becomes useless? I tend to hope not... Also, I watched "Goya's Ghosts" the other night, with mein vater: disturbing and about the Inquisition, what could be better? For the purposes of novel writing, it's semi-unfortunate that the Church has so long ago abandoned its incredible bloody-mindedness. I visited the library today, after calculus.
~ Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican Council, II - Vatican Council. 2nd.
~ The Wisdom of Catholicism - Anton Pegis
~ The Principles of Monasticism - Bernard Sause
~ Sex in Christianity and Psychoanalysis - William Cole
~ Orthodoxy - G.K. Chesterton
~ The Silent Life - Thomas Merton
~ The Case Worker - Gyorgy Konrad
- mood:
good - music:Emyli by Pretty Balanced
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frostianmoods, and the template itself may or may not be temporary. I rather like the idea of woodcuts for a novel drenched in Catholicism - brings to mind the good ol' days before Gutenberg. But it's hard to get use to anything other than The Chair: because it's the oldest, the first, the longest, all other LJs seem awkward and out of place in comparison.I digress.
Let the November madness begin! Though I'm hardly ready for it - and still have a great mass of research to plow through - I'm excited to start writing again. It's been too long, and I've wanted to write this particular novel for the better part of forever. On some level, I assumed that I would put it off forever, but what better way to kill writers block than to leap at something embedded in the future? Also. I will be avoiding caffeinated all-nighters this time around. You may rely on it.
- mood:
sick - music:The Contest from the Sweeney Todd Soundtrack
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excommunimoi- the one that got away
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