Sunday, August 14, 2011

Strong Silent Type

Happy Sunday! I have officially posted 144 posts! That's 12 squared! That's got to be a milestone. Today I had some barbecue and beers with friends. On Saturday I had a long walk around town and channeled Heisenberg from Breaking Bad. I had a daydream about a drug lord movie that I could shoot here in town. It was about a guy who wanted to get out simply out of boredom. While all his foot soldiers were building lives and families with all the money they were making, all he ever got out of the drug trade was intensity, suspicion, the occasional puzzle, but now he was just bored of it all. I got a sense of Dexter while dreaming it up: the tireless professional coming to terms with ennui and loneliness. I got to thinking about business things, accumulating assets, etc. It was an empowering trance for me. I only wish that I could translate all that trance-like thought into a substantial solution for my money problems.

I am drawing X-Men like crazy. I also drew the Iron Fist.



Uploaded by on Aug 9, 2011

This weekend I also walked around Borders. You can usually find me in there looking for a bargain or something interesting, or just trying to take in the atmosphere. However, this time all I could do was walk around as though crawling through the rubble of ground zero. I can't say that Borders has any special significance for me; it neither draws immense ire, nor tearful memories of good times past. It is just a place, one of thousands of bookstores, that will cease to be in the near future, and to me that is just pitiable.

So an idea hit me over the head just now, or rather a kind of vague reminder of things I'm interested. At the back of my mind are these gorgeous Ashley Wood paintings spot lighted by David Apatoff, also this wiki entry about Nippur. I'm interested in mysticism and the uncertain--more specifically how human beings approach these unfamiliar things. I'm conjuring the ancient world where one of the old, long forgotten Gods reigned over foggy minds. I'm thinking of imagery that doesn't play to the conscientious and often commercial need to be immediately recognizable. I'm thinking of classical drama, that tugged at the threads of proper custom and precedent, unraveling the stoic traditions of yore, even as it made hairs stand on end, skin flush, and eyes water.

I've become accustomed, as of late, to stories revolving around the post-modern, the irreverent, mostly comedies. I've read countless autobio comics, and discovered the rhythm and ebb and flow of these communities of storytellers. But now, on the verge of plying myself at this craft, I am drawn back to high drama, mystery, mysticism, that wonder tinged with an uneasy fear of stumbling upon something profoundly sinister, or else intensely ungraspable. I've got to get to work.

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