235. Nancy Wheeler wears } an Emerson T.

 

When Nancy would’ve gone to Emerson College (if she goes. I haven’t watched Stranger Things 4), WECB was an AM station. She’d graduate in 1990. Or ’91. Soon after I will host a radio show from midnight – 2am once a week.

I invited undergraduate writing majors to discuss their writing & play music they liked. The first episode I was worried I couldn’t easily fill two hours, so I invited four guests; by the end of the show’s run, I invited one. I called the show Radio Never Sleeps. After the first episode, it was co-hosted by Concetta Troskie. She & I got on wonderfully, though I don’t remember ever socializing w/ her outside the studio. It’s as if she appeared & vanished; I might’ve seemed the same to her, except she once told a story, on air, about seeing me at a crosswalk. She remarked about my patience: I stood stock-still till the light changed. (When I am required to wait—in line at the market, at bus stops, etc., I zip into my mind. “Head in the clouds,” Dad admonished.) Concetta's now a dance/movement therapist.

I taped every episode. I’m not sure how it happened, but all those tapes ended up in a paper bag under the cellar stairs at my parents’—I found them yesterday. What would it do to me to listen to them?

234. Clint Smith } loiters low.

I’ve read “Lovenest,” Clint Smith’s contribution to Looming Low II (from Dim Shores, due this fall). I won’t spoil it other than to say it’s fun &…

the narrator & his ex-wife talk in a dark parking lot next to a partially-demolished hotel. This setting is commonplace & bleak. Cooking oil, asphalt, dumpster, exhaust. Chain-link fence, young maple, bramble. A paper receipt, ground into the dirt. Mundane & awful. Especially American?

In my introduction to Clint’s Skeleton Melodies, I characterized his fiction as “realism horror.” An awkward phrase, for sure—but apt enough (he adopted the phrase as his blog’s sub-head, so surely he finds it apt). For all the fantasy in “Lovenest,” the parking lot setting grounds the story here. It’s also where the most ominous scene in the story take place: the moment before the charnel house door is slammed shut (so to speak).

I don’t know that Looming Low II will be worth your hard-earned & diminished dollar, but you’ll want to read Clint’s story for sure. (Mind, I have no reason to believe Looming Low II won’t be good! But we haven’t read the other stories yet, have we?)

In the meantime, there’s Ghouljaw & Skeleton Melodies. Get thyself to a library, nun!

233. Sawako Nakayasu } leaves.

 Kate K. texted the following three photos: 

& she wrote, “This issue of poetry… did you know about Sawako's poem? I did a double take when I saw you there…”

I did know. Pink Waves, Sawako’s latest book, was written in a theater space. Visitors were encouraged to be in the space while she worked. Twice, I sat in the theater & wrote while Sawako worked. I drafted sections of “San Francisco Essay” (which will appear in an upcoming issue of Bennington Review).

The theater where she wrote was located beneath my office. Some mornings, early, I’d let myself into the dark theater before anyone else was in the building. Feel my way down the spiral staircase. Pause at Sawako’s worktable. Move past the mirror & through the black curtains to the exit.

I “went away again” in the April issue of Poetry; I am “going away” in the May issue of The White Review.

232. Mister X proposal for } Critical Cartoons.

 

Throughout 2015 & 2016, Tom K. (editor at Uncivilized Books) & I corresponded about Critical Cartoons; in May of 2016, I queried about writing a volume,

I keep toying with the possibility of proposing a book for your series... but I imagine you're well set for the future. I'd do Mr. X (Vortex) or The One (epic) or (heaven forbid!) Gore/Shriek (FantaCo). So much to think about.

He replied,

Please propose a book! I’d LOVE a book about Mr. X (architecture & comics is one of my pet topics!) or The One!!! I haven’t thought about Gore/Shriek in ages, I’ll have to dig them out of my long boxes! There a lot of proposals I’m juggling, but a [sic] many of them are not very solid yet. There’s a lot of room to maneuver if you’re serious.

A week later I sent a 7-pg. proposal. What follows is from the first pg. of my proposal.

# # #

Definition destroys the beauty ambiguity makes.

Eye-level with the street, man-hole cover lifted light as a nickel, “It wasn’t easy for the man to return to the city”; his bald head, the thin bridge of his nose—his sunglasses reflect Radiant City. Behind him, skyscrapers and sky-bridges and spotlights. Or, behind him is the dream city “he himself designed” but left unfinished. Or, he is at the center of Radiant City. The city stands behind him and, reflected in the dark lenses he wears, in front of him. He is Mr. X.

Dean Motter, who “created and designed” Mister X, articulates (unintentionally) the problem with the original 14-issue run (1983 – 1988), “People remembered [Mr. X] without ever having seen him.” A better word than “seen” might be “read”—seeing Mr. X suggests much, but, “While the imagery that collaborator Paul Rivoche and I were developing looked interesting, the premise began to seem rather banal by comparison.” And, “[Mr. X’s] cache was, after all, his ambiguity. His mystique. His aura of menace. His sheer unconventionality.” Mister X is beautiful when it is allowed to be ambiguous, mysterious, strange. “But,” Motter writes, “that all seemed to be falling to the wayside the more I tried to define him.” Of course. Definition destroys the beauty ambiguity makes. Motter “& Co.” tended to explain rather than allow, to restart rather than proceed.

Nonetheless, Mister X was not resolved, so beauty remains.

# # #

After a follow-up from me, K. wrote,

Apologies for the big delay! We were pretty swamped with pre-sales for the Spring ’17 season. I’m planning on taking a look & giving you some feedback this week. I really appreciate this!

I never heard from K. again. My sense is that Critical Cartoons stalled or went in a different direction. Maybe my proposal is wretched. What do I know?

I know I like the proposal I wrote. Mister X is a flawed comic, but it loomed large in my teenaged imagination. The story is mysterious & it was mysterious in the world (my classmates didn’t read it & I couldn’t buy it at Dairy Mart, where I could always grab the latest X-Men or Batman).

My father bought me the first issue. I hunted & hunted for the rest.

Now you can easily get the whole thing from Dark Horse, complete w/ a hyperbolic introduction by Warren Ellis.

[ Note: Lars Ingebrigten wrote a good overview of Mister X on his blog here. The image above is from the Dark Horse collected Mister X, w/ my Post-it note (“Pathways / his motivation... to keep them secret?” attached. ]

231. Conversation w/ } Spider & the Undiscovered Bug.

…carefully typewritten by myself when I was fifteen (or thereabouts), 3 pgs. of a play dedicated to my then-girlfriend. Here’s an excerpt:

SPIDER: I saw a movie the other night.

UNDISCOVERED BUG: Oh? & what was it called?

SPIDER: I believe it was called A Boy and His Dog.

UNDISCOVERED BUG: Sounds nice.

SPIDER: Oh, no. It wasn’t nice. But I thought you might be interested to hear about it because it's a love story.

UNDISCOVERED BUG: Yes! Yes, Spider, that might prove interesting.

SPIDER: The boy—I don’t recall his name. Let’s call him Smith-Corona Coronamatic. Smith-Corona Coronamatic went underground where most of the human race lived to find a girl. He wanted her very badly.

UNDISCOVERED BUG: He was in love with her?

SPIDER: I’m sure of it. When he found her, he & she were stuck underground. They worked together to escape. She said she loved him & he said she loved her too.

UNDISCOVERED BUG: & they lived happily ever after with the boy’s dog?

SPIDER: No, the dog & the boy ate her.

Spider’s retelling of A Boy and His Dog (1975) deliberately misunderstand the movie—but that’s me, appropriating a film to tell my own story. That story being about the indignities of love.

The film, by the way, is a black comedy set in the wake of WWIV during the year 2024. I’d like to know how the human race survived WWIII, but I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

The MS. is missing its first page & whatever else I wrote after pg. 4. The last page introduces a character who is clearly a stand-in for me: Paperboy. (I delivered newspapers for several years, back when newspapers were carried in big canvas shoulder-bags early in the morning by gals & lads who rode bicycles & saved their tips to pay for college.) This part of the play doesn’t exactly make sense. Paperboy is depressed. Radiator told him he “is a stupid idiot” but Grapefruit told Paperboy she loves him. Paperboy then renounces Spider & Undiscovered Bug. They’re not the gurus he thought they were, apparently.

[ image: a screenshot from the opening sequence of A Boy and His Dog ]

230. Marie de France & } Tales from the Darkside.

 

King Arthur dishes out wives & land to all who helped repel the Scots & the Picts—all except Lanval. No one puts in a good word for Lanval. He’s excellent, but not one to boast. & the knights who notice Lanval envy him, so they stay mum. “Now [Lanval] was in a plight, very sad and forlorn.”

Aimless, he decides to “take his ease” in a meadow. It’s a strange meadow; his horse senses this but Lanval does not. He takes a nap. Or maybe he’s awake. Two maidens arrive & ask, on behalf of “my damsel,” that Lanval follow them to her tent. The tent is fabulous (“There is no king under the sun who could afford it”) & the damsel inside is fabulous.

She offers Lanval her love & wealth, but w/ a single stipulation: he mustn’t tell anyone about her.

For a time, Lanval enjoys the damsel’s company & his new found wealth—but the knights, who previously ignored Lanval (specifically Gawain), decide to invite him to a garden party & there, at the party, the queen (Guinevere, I presume), hits on Lanval. Lanval rebuffs her advance. She says, “I have been told often enough that you have no desire for women. You have well-trained young men and enjoy yourself with them.” Lanval denies he’s gay & tells her he is “loved by a lady who should be prized above all others I know.” He adds that the queen is worth less than even the poorest girl in the kingdom.

In turn, the queen promptly tells Arthur that Lanval made a move on her at the party. Lanval is put on trial; to defend himself, he tells the court about the damsel—& realizes, the moment he does so, that he’s broken his promise & lost her.

Since he can’t produce the damsel in court, he’s jailed. His sentence will be banishment. Unless… at the very last moment the damsel arrives. She declares her love for Lanval & no once disputes that she’s more beautiful than the queen. Lanval is freed, & he rides with the damsel to Avalon.

Now, there’s plenty that’s different about “Lanval” & the Tales from the Darkside episode “Ring Around the Redhead” (based on John McDonald’s story)—but there are striking similarities. The damsel—Keena, she’s named—offers not only beauty & material wealth but also intellectual gifts that appear to be magic. The hero—Billy, not Lanval—is in love with her knowledge & w/ the promise of a life in the perfect world where she’s from. Although Billy is not accused of insulting a queen, he’s in jail, about to be executed, unable to prove to anyone that there ever was a Keena. Lanval’s advocate is Gawain; Billy’s advocate is a journalist. At the very last moment, before Billy’s execution, Keena returns & whisks him away to her perfect land—Avalon.

Bob Byrne, writing for Black Gate (“Birthday Reviews: John D. Macdonald’s “Ring Around the Redhead”), dismisses the episode:

The story was adapted in 1985 for an episode of Tales from the Darkside, starring John Heard and Penelope Ann Miller. By all accounts, it was forgettable and did not justice to MacDonald’s writing.

I can’t dispute this, since (I’m embarrassed to admit) I haven’t read McDonald’s story (I will!). However, “Ring Around the Redhead” is one of my favorite episodes of Tales from the Darkside, one I rewatch often.

I don’t claim that McDonald took inspiration from “Lanval”—although there’s no reason why he mightn’t have. We can, however, be fairly sure “Ring Around the Redhead” wasn’t influenced by Roxy Music.

[ Image of Keena from Tales from the Darkside "Ring Around the Redhead" ]

229. Abbey Road sketches } (home demo).

 

A student wrote “zone-off” instead of “zone-out.” She zoned-off. I dig it. Like, to get-off. Zoned-off to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”—but, as often, study / attend to it.

Oversized load & “Old Brown Shoe.” A house on a flatbed. Mom & Dad bought a house on a flatbed & set it where the old house used to be. Stood in the pit where the old house was & Marci said, “Yr grinning, Adam.”

“Sun King” begins w/ nighttime sounds.

Choosing a name fr yrself. “Oh, Darling!” Mom & Dad name you X but yr called Y. What of us who don’t make or acquire a nickname? Anything we don’t need to decide / think about is good.

Steer the car beneath the wheels of a K-Line tractor trailer. “He shut his eyes & came out…” the countdown “1, 2, ah 1, 2, 3, 4.” Cars keep losing the lane. Veering into mine “Oh, I’m losing my cool.”

Or you all came in too late.

A bright blue car full of plants. Not potted plants. Rooted in the upholstery. Grassland in the back seat. Driver in a camo poncho, stalked by a lioness; she’ll wait until the car is in park before she pounces.