LookingLand

nextian sent me a meme and i am passing it along. the gig is: i answer thirty questions with one (or none or several, apparently) name(s) each, and you only find out the questions if you comment and promise to do it yourself.

( meme! )

~ * ~

meanwhile, it's been an up/down weekend and lj is making the option of skipping over the permanent account sale very easy. they even moved the selling window to december ~ guess they're trying to fix the hideous profile page before sale (too late: they've lost my money).

it's 26 degrees right now, which is about just right for an indoor temp in the ballpark of 58-60. i'm wearing fleecy jammies, muffy socks, and a light nightgown (and hell no, i didn't get dressed all weekend, which was my plan ~ weeeeee!)

okay, but on to business.

the challenges of the challenge: spent the earlier part of saturday morning painting the first three strips. i'm not unhappy with how they came out, though there are things about them i could criticize (aren't there always?). the real problem is that between the drawing, inking, painting, and lettering, i have to do four passes with each strip and by the third pass, i'm feeling kvetchy about the whole project. this is me being overly fussy and lazy and undisciplined, but it's a serious problem because right now i wish i'd never drawn a single panel and i'm ruminating on the simplicity of just writing pert little bon-bon novellas and not bothering with all this falutin' "art" nonsense.

you have no idea.

: o p

i think i keep going in this circle because i don't want to be defeated, because i have in mind this concept and the concept includes pictures, but i can never quite get a handle on what it looks like in a physical form.

right now, sam ita's Moby Dick (is that ironic or what?) and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea come closest in spirit, but without the pop-ups. i keep looking at book designs and illustrations and there are dozens out there that i would love to emulate and dozens i've thought were "right" for this untenable creature but which proved too stiff (the victorian periodical was in the win for a long long time, but there was something inorganic about it that bothered me: the lack of color and the density of the text, mostly). and i have poured over william morris, whose designs were as close to a modern-day illuminated manuscript in the 19th century, but morris was a genius and ultimately i want something softer than the print block. i want something somewhat luscious, but also gritty ~ like pie. pie is vibrant, crisp, warm, melty.

anyone on my flist know of a book that mimics the experience of pie?

well, all sunday i toiled and moiled and despite several highly experiment stabs, came up with something pretty traditional and that's where it stands (still). i don't hate it (you can see it here). i used a lot of layers to get the color just right (hope everyone likes yellow, because that's what it is!). i guess i can only see how it goes from here.

nice frost on the ground this morning ~ still wish it would snow.

: o p


from sam ita's Moby Dick: not a very
good picture, but it might give you an impression
of the complexity of the book

i keep writing entries and then abandoning them. a long ramble about john jakes, more quibbling about neal stephenson, and a lengthy review of the tv series Firefly. but it was all so critical, i have decided to write about something i really like instead.

i really loved the X-Files because the basic, driving story is not really about aliens and conspiracies. it's a story about the conflict between Mulder's belief (in those aliens and conspiracies), and Scully's faith (her middling Catholicism). during the course of the show, Scully does grow in her faith as she develops a belief in Mulder's craziness. Mulder's journey, too, is toward faith, ultimately, when he comes to realize that just finding the truth and believing it doesn't mean there are answers or solutions. he realizes that he has to have something more.

if you've never seen the show or have any desire to watch it, you may want to skip the quote below; these are the lines that close the final season of the X-files. Mulder and Scully sit on a motel bed (bringing us pretty much full circle to where their [wonderfully platonic] relationship began). they are on the run and the world is doomed. Scully tells Mulder that he found the truth and it didn't bring back his sister or save the world. So now what?

Mulder: I want to believe that the dead are not lost to us. That they speak to us as part of something greater than us, greater than any alien force. And if you and I are powerless now, I want to believe that if we listen to it speak it can give us the power to save ourselves.

Scully: Then we believe the same thing.

Mulder: Maybe there's hope.

There is an emphatic gesture here between the lines in which Mulder touches the small cross around Scully's neck before she speaks. out of context, it maybe feels like a goofy, ham-fisted moment (maybe even in context). but it really did end the show perfectly. nine seasons of sometimes ridiculous plot turns and "back-from-the-dead" scenarios and unkillable super-soldiers, yes. but there was always something more and that was what drew me to it. X-files could be cheap and manipulative like any tv show, but i always felt like it had a bigger heart under all the flash, that it wanted to do something more than just chase little green men.

its Moby Dick leitmotif was always very apt (and probably underappreciated). we are, all of us, chasing our own great white whales.

maybe its the failure to recognize this (or strive for it) that i find lacking in so many other creative works.



p.s. a long-awaited movie sequel is allegedly in the works. i am not holding my breath, but if it is being filmed, i hope they do right by it.

i've been complaining forever about not having a unifiying über-title for my work. something that would take the three distinct periods (antebellum america, the war of northern aggression, and the reconstruciton era) and encapsulate them (though technically the reconstruction era ends in 1877 and then the gilded age sorta took over ~ which sorta puts a crimp in my bustle, but we can work out the details later, i mean, technically only One Perfect Summer falls into the strictly antebellum era, so i could shift everything from bellum to reconstruction to gildedness and no one would be the wiser). boy, i sure can natter.

anyway, assuming we're working in the magical land of threes: try this one for size (now seemingly the most obviously appropriate title in the world):

An American Triptych

on top of which i love this almost completely unrelated painting:



from hunter studio (how apropos)

p.s. while i realize that this does not make allowances for Raziel's Dream, i'm okay with that book being a seperate critter (especially since it takes place almost entirely in france and not in america at all).

"Quagmire" ~ 3.22

SCULLY: It's funny, I just realized something.

MULDER: [Queequeg is a] bizarre name for a dog?

SCULLY: No, how much you're like Ahab. You're so consumed by your personal vengeance against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or mysteries, everything takes on a warped significance to fit your megalomaniacal cosmology.

MULDER: Scully, are you coming on to me?

SCULLY: It's the truth or a white whale. What difference does it make? I mean, both obsessions are impossible to capture, and trying to do so will only leave you dead along with everyone else you bring with you. You know Mulder, you are Ahab.

MULDER: You know, its interesting you should say that, because I've always wanted a peg leg. It's a boyhood thing I never grew out of. I'm not being flippant, I've given this a lot of thought. I mean. if you have a peg leg or hooks for hands then maybe its enough to simply keep on living. You know, braving facing life with your disability. But without these things you're actually meant to make something of your life, achieve something earn a raise, wear a necktie. So if anything I'm actually the antithesis of Ahab, because if I did have a peg leg I'd quite possibly be more happy and more content not to be chasing after these creatures of the unknown.

~ * ~

ah, for those halcyon days when that show was something to be reckoned with. X-files may well be the last bit of mainstream pop-culture i was ever actually plugged into.

sad, that.

: D