SUPPLEMENTAL: Extra-Terrestrial Musings

As an aside, I see UFO's from time to time. The most recent one was a couple of weeks ago, when I was standing with my dad at night on his balcony. Overhead a light, very high up, was making its way across the sky. It appeared to be driven by a drunkard, as it wavered from side to side, covering distances of what must have been a couple of miles at the height, and very quickly.

My dad had stepped inside and I asked "do you want to see a UFO?". Sometimes I ask people these things, most often I keep it to myself. Some of the things I've seen....

He wandered out with a concerned expression on his face, and I pointed it out.

"Interesting, huh" I said with practiced, near authentic, nonchalance.

"What makes you think its a UFO?" he asked.

"Primarily" says I, with a touch of incredulity, "because its waving from side to side like a joyrider on acid".

"Yeah, I can see what you mean" he says with a level head, "but it might just look like that because its so high up and on its own, and there's no reference for its movements. Its probably just a plane". "Could be" I mused, "but planes fly straight, and usually have blinking lights". I say this more because I want to explore than explain. I'm not trying to attribute anything special to the miniscule and innocuous light. For all I know, it is a plane.

"What? Like that" he said, as a plane appeared from the the other side of the sky, definately flying in a straight line, point of reference or not, and irrefutably attributing abnormal behaviour to the previous object.

"Yep" I said, savouring the poetic justice.

I never wanted to write about ghosts and vampires and aliens, or gangsters and gunrunners and other sensationalised characters. I wanted to write some serious fiction, something grounded in the everyday. Perhaps I still will, but what recurs is a fascination with the out-of-the-ordinary, an inspired enthusiasm for magic and madness and the impossible.

The art, perhaps, is making these things part of the everyday.

I've just returned from watching 'The Fourth Kind'. Kinda interesting, didn't provoke much of a reaction in many ways, but a few things stood out enough to tickle my fancy.

1. The Sumerian speaking alien, and suggestions of interstellar origin. Various archeological finds depicting flying sauces to me imply that while we may not come from another planet, humanity has at least been captivated and drawn to the stars for a long time.

2. The fact that the abductions occurred at 3.33am. This is never explained in the film, and occums razor leads me to think that it was simply a stylisation. Why not 2.34? Because 3.33 suggests an intent.

3. This is what really clinched it for me, what really got me interested, and it didn't occur until the end of the film. The alien creature, full of wraith and menace, audio and visual distortions etc, says "I am god".

3 1/2. When asked "you say this creature said it was god. What do you believe?"

"What I believe is that this creature....was far beyond anything we can imagine. It was...complete hopelessness, and so it wasn't god. But it could pretend to be".

Taking points 2 - 3/12 gives a damn good account of the demon 333. Point two names it, and point 3 names its reason d'etre. Its fantastic, and completely unintentional, as far as i can work out. Those that encountered it in the film frequently committed suicide or went mad. This too is a common factor in encounters with "the demon 333". Dr. John Dee was attacked by it in the late 1500's, and Alistair Crowley taunted it in the 1920's (if memory serves) which leads to his accomplices suicide. These days there is a trend in Chaos Magick circles that actually all the 'puny humans' that don't practice their enlightened brand of pop-occultism simply misunderstand its nature, and actually its quite fun to play with. They call is Choronzon. Charles Manson adopted the number 333 as his own, which is not suprising considering it belonged to something pretending to be god.

For me, it was worth sitting through the film for that tit-bit synchronicity.

LOG231310-11.7 How I Doth Protest Too Much.

Rolled out of bed this morning, into some clothes and shoes then down the road to the local cafe for coffee and reflection on my personal profile, which I dutifully emailed to my tutor this morning.

After that came back, had breakfast, spent a few hours penning a first draft rehashed and rekindled from previous writings, constructing a dream sequence. Only 1278 words, but its only a first draft with plenty of place for expanding the story. I was pleased that it all ran together quite well.

Then read 50 pages of Douglas Adams' "Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul", finding the best line to be:

"Since Dirk's Jaguar had only lost its front right indicator, and Dirk insisted that he hardly ever turned right anyway, they drove the short distance there".

Hurrying through it so I can move onto "The Island of Doctor Moreau".

Am now considering going to see the film "The Fourth Kind" after a cup of coffee, followed by a couple of whiskies, because I know that no one else will see it with me - quite rightly, no doubt, since I expect it to be.....well......you know.....Aliens and Hollywood - and I'm rekindling my childhood enthusiasm for things that can't be explained, because I love what a lack of explanation does for my imagination.

I have my doubts. I would rather sit here and bash out a second draft, but I can't write and read all day - as my friends and family keep telling me - or I'll turn into an octopus [vis a vis my dream sequence]. I wont be suprised if I come back from the film and sit at my desk until 2.30 writing drafts, though. Whisky permitting.

LOG231310-11.6 Paradise Addendum

Today I finished two poems for my first assignment (a long one called "Logos" and a short one called "Paradise Addendum"). It's possibly the very first time in my life that I've ever written a poem more than once. Tomorrow I will start on the prose. Thankfully I have a good hundred pages to trawl through for something to rewrite, and a quarter of a workbook filled since I bought it five or six days ago. I havn't found a new job yet.

I'm going to introduce a quote of the day to my log. I have noticed that this log started off as something of a notebook, and am now intending to veer it towards an account of the days musings and practice, with pertinent bits of information thrown in. Such as Joseph Cambells thoughts on myth, found in a never before published article on the Parabola Magazine website:

The real reference of mythology is to the spirit, to the psyche-right in here. [Points at chest.] The way a society grips its members, and holds them to the tasks of the society, is by enabling people to project their own inward mythic potentials into the context of the society in which they are living.

But when the context of the society has changed, then we need a new mythology-the same great themes, because there are permanent, universal themes which are the base, the ground of all mythological lore. But these themes then have to be related to an environment in which the individual is living.

I have decided it will be necessary to subscribe to some periodicals that inspire me and keep me informed of developments in the fields that I am interested in. One of these is the Parabola Magazine, which explores myth today in a cross-cultural and comparative sense.

I also joined the library, so I can read more novels for free. I'm still on my journey of rediscovery, finding out what it is that turns me on literary wise.

In little under an hour I will be going to a lecture given by Andy Thomas on "Exploring Unexplained Mysteries". Coincidentally, I picked up a magazine with an article he wrote today, while looking for something inspiring.

I am not enthused about the idea of listening to someone talk about crop circles and psychic phenomena, since these subjects always seem to be approached from the stance of "these things are completely real, and I have an explanation", or "these things are complete fantasy, and I have an explanation".

What I am hoping for is a talk about what it means when things can't be explained. I want to hear of the bafflement, befuddlement, bemusement, not the manicured personal belief systems attached to such phenomena in an effort to make them just like everything else - understandable. Neat. Tidy. Resolved.

Failing that, I wish to steal peoples barmy conceptions of the extra-ultra-and-uber terrestrial, the mytho-poetical, and spawn spurious fictional characters with them.

dream poems

Once in the dream of a night I stood
Lone in the light of a magical wood,
Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;
And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,
And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,
And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

Lone in the light of that magical grove,
I felt the stars of the spirits of Love
Gather and gleam round my delicate youth,
And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth;
To quench my longing I bent me low
By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.



- Sarojini Naidu


A Dream



Once a dream did weave a shade
O'er my Angel-guarded bed,
That an Emmet lost its way
Where on grass methought I lay.

Troubled, 'wilder'd, and forlorn,
Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
Over many a tangled spray,
All heart-broken I heard her say:

``O, my children! do they cry?
Do they hear their father sigh?
Now they look abroad to see:
Now return and weep for me.''

Pitying, I drop'd a tear;
But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied: ``What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?

``I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle's hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home.''


- William Blake



A Dream within a dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?



- Edgar Allan Poe


Dream Variation



To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me--
That is my dream!






To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.





- Langston Hughes


A Dream

Hear now a curious dream I dreamed last night

Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.



I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled

Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:

It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight;

Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled

Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,

Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.

The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend

My closest friend would deem the facts untrue;

And therefore it were wisely left untold;

Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.



Each crocodile was girt with massive gold

And polished stones that with their wearers grew:

But one there was who waxed beyond the rest,

Wore kinglier girdle and a kingly crown,

Whilst crowns and orbs and sceptres starred his breast.

All gleamed compact and green with scale on scale,

But special burnishment adorned his mail

And special terror weighed upon his frown;

His punier brethren quaked before his tail,

Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail.



So he grew lord and master of his kin:

But who shall tell the tale of all their woes?

An execrable appetite arose,

He battened on them, crunched, and sucked them in.

He knew no law, he feared no binding law,

But ground them with inexorable jaw:

The luscious fat distilled upon his chin,

Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes,

While still like hungry death he fed his maw;

Till every minor crocodile being dead

And buried too, himself gorged to the full,

He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw.

Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw:

In sleep he dwindled to the common size,

And all the empire faded from his coat.

Then from far off a wingèd vessel came,

Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame:

I know not what it bore of freight or host,

But white it was as an avenging ghost.

It levelled strong Euphrates in its course;

Supreme yet weightless as an idle mote

It seemed to tame the waters without force

Till not a murmur swelled or billow beat:

Lo, as the purple shadow swept the sands,

The prudent crocodile rose on his feet

And shed appropriate tears and wrung his hands.



What can it mean? you ask. I answer not

For meaning, but myself must echo, What?

And tell it as I saw it on the spot


Question: What are dreams?

Sri Chinmoy: Dreams are realities of other worlds. If they are dreams from the lower worlds, the soul will either try to illumine and elevate them or try to destroy them. Unillumined dreams create tremendous problems for the seeker. If they are undivine dreams, the soul's light fights with them and does not want them to manifest.

If they are elevating dreams, dreams from the higher worlds, then the soul's light expedites their earthward journey.


The Dream by Lord Byron
I

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past—they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power—
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not—what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make
Substances, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dreamed
Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs: the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing—the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself—but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young—yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had looked
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers:
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which coloured all his objects;—he had ceased
To live within himself: she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all; upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother—but no more; 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honoured race.—It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why?
Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

III

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
His bowed head on his hands and shook, as 'twere
With a convulsion—then rose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved; she knew—
For quickly comes such knowledge—that his heart
Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed
From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more.

IV

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man,
Glad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

V

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love was wed with One
Who did not love her better: in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,—her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold!
Upon her face there was a tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?—she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which preyed
Upon her mind—a spectre of the past.

VI

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was returned.—I saw him stand
Before an altar—with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The Starlight of his Boyhood;—as he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The selfsame aspect and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then—
As in that hour—a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced—and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been—
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back
And thrust themselves between him and the light;
What business had they there at such a time?

VII

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;—Oh! she was changed,
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compassed round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains; with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues: and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was opened wide,
And voices from the deep abyss revealed
A marvel and a secret.—Be it so.

IX

My dream is past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality—the one
To end in madness—both in misery.



We dream -- it is good we are dreaming -- by Emily Dickinson

We dream -- it is good we are dreaming --
It would hurt us -- were we awake --
But since it is playing -- kill us,
And we are playing -- shriek --

What harm? Men die -- externally --
It is a truth -- of Blood --
But we -- are dying in Drama --
And Drama -- is never dead --

Cautious -- We jar each other --
And either -- open the eyes --
Lest the Phantasm -- prove the Mistake --
And the livid Surprise

Cool us to Shafts of Granite --
With just an Age -- and Name --
And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian --
It's prudenter -- to dream --



- Christina Rossetti

Dreams by Robert William Service

I had a dream, a dream of dread:
I thought that horror held the house;
A burglar bent above my bed,
He moved as quiet as a mouse.
With hairy hand and naked knife
He poised to plunge a bloody stroke,
Until despairful of my life
I shrieked with terror - and awoke.

I had a dream of weary woes:
In weather that was fit to freeze,
I thought that I had lost my cloths,
And only wore a short chemise.
The wind was wild; so catch a train
I ran, but no advance did make;
My legs were pistoning in vain -
How I was happy to awake!

I had a dream: Upon the stair
I met a maid who kissed my lips;
A nightie was her only wear,
We almost came to loving grips.
And then she opened wide a door,
And pointed to a bonny bed . . .
Oh blast! I wakened up before
I could discover - were we wed?

Alas! Those dreams of broken bliss,
Of wakenings too sadly soon!
With memories of sticky kiss,
And limbs so languidly a-swoon!
Alas those nightmares devil driven!
Those pantless prowlings in Pall Mall!
Oh why should some dreams be like heaven
And others so resemble hell?


Dreams by David Herbert Lawrence

All people dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.

But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
For they dream their dreams with open eyes,
And make them come true.

A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed-
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar-
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?

LOG231310-11.5 Death by Sandwich

Notes on making the ordinary extraordinary, and on writing a themed poem.

1. "I must have a clear and firm idea of ones main theme, in this case dream, and about what the components of this theme are".

Trope: Dream.

Organs: A. Imagination, B. Delirium, C. Philosophy, D. An Event.

2. I must then decide upon a side to take, a point(s) of view, if one does not already have me by the throat.

A. Image.iNation: Corporatization of the archetypes, mediation of direct mytho-poetic experience through media consumerism. Flouting the consensus, and the risks inherent.

B. Core experiences: Change in cognition, disturbance of consciousness, "intrusive abnormalities of awareness and affect, such as hallucinations or inappropriate emotional states", [sic.] a loss of control.

C. Skeptical Hypothesis: Reality as a dream; Descartes, Zhuangzi. The autonomy of symbols, memetic theory and the collective unconscious. Symbols as parts externalised parts of the mind.

D. Wassailing: an ancient English ritual. Traditionally, a form of tree worship. In this poem, a form of city worship. Looking for an unchartered spirit to answer a question. Not being allowed to go home until you receive an answer.

3. I must know how these organs work together to sustain the main theme. One must know the correlations, correspondences, conflicts and comparisons. I imagined several scenarios with dream as the catalyst.

For the sake of brevity, I wish to contrast the act of what is medically known as "quiet delirium", where the subject is non-responsive, with the hyperactive delirium of hallucination. The virgin mobile advert in the sidebar is my take on "quiet" delirium, where the experience is one that doesn't affect the world around us.

4. Chart a course - Making a narrative, step by step.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Notes from poetry.com:

You may feel you’re informed about domestic squabbling, perhaps even competent to address it, but if you haven’t any interest in writing on that subject, pass it up. You may be interested in teen gangs, but have no experience and little knowledge about them. You should probably not attempt that subject.

Once you’ve chosen your subjects, start by selecting one and jotting down the first several, relevant things that come into your head, no matter how apparent or superficial. Do this with your entire list of subjects.

When you are ready to compose your poem, make certain that you do not include these off-the-top-of-your-head statements.

Next, extract the salient features of the situation and construct its narrative line. Like a parable, a narrative makes its point. Presented in chronological order, each step in the progression of events could become a paragraph of the poem.

The value of an approach to a theme can only be measured by the resulting poetry.

LOG:231310.11-4. Poetic Emanations

I spent most of this morning experimenting with form. Starting off with a one page piece of observational writing, about the cafe courtyard I was sitting in, I noticed a prevalence of suitcases, boxes and professionals. All of them going to and fro, revealing little. I relied on poetic emanations to give me a sense of character. I then noticed that most people stopped to look at the notice board, so I wrote over my observations with the captions and titles that caught peoples attention. I then drew a series of random boxes, attempting to find a correlation. An essence. The result was something of a failure. Without a sense of agency, the boxes contained little of value. Despite highlighting key phrases to plan a route through the word forest (I mapped a section of the underground over the top also) I was disappointed.



What I was looking for was a sort of essence that flowed through the disjointed words, a sense of place or genus loci, but after all the overlapping and rewriting the whole thing lacked character.

Additional: Writing all day, and when I couldn't bare to scratch another word I lay down and ranted into my digital camera. "Who gives a fuck about dreams??", at last I broke. It seems I am coming up against something more entrenched than my whimsical desire for animate streets. Anyway, I wrote a poem at least - all the gnashing of teeth going somewhere.

LOG:231310.11-3. Why Horror?

"http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-Do-We-Enjoy-Horror-Films?&id=1060951"

The article above states:

Noal Carroll (1987) presents a co-existentialist theory, where it is curiosity which drives us to horror, more specifically it is our curiosity about what we believe to be naturally, as apposed to logically, impossible. We find pleasure in curiosity, however to get this curiosity we need to be presented with an impossible being to be curious about. In order to seem impossible to us a being must cross the boundaries we have used to classify nature, for example, something that posses the qualities of more than one type of animal, something living and dead, bodies which are not complete, or bodies which possess more than we would expect. These creatures will inspire awe and fascination amongst us but due to their nature they will also disgust us.

Mary Douglas suggested that these creatures which defy category incite us to instinctive aversion, that they are above all ANOMALOUS. It is the anomalous that scares us collectively, for it is that which is anomalous that has in the past poisoned, polluted and in other ways endangered us. Socially, we need categories in order to communicate a large amount of information quickly, and the longer it takes to do this, the more chance there is that the anomalous shape before you will eat you.

I have always been drawn to the anomalous because it is within this as yet uncategorised object that the futures are germinated. It is the anomalous that lives in Turners 'liminal' spaces. Those things without clear shapes, without clear boundaries, remniscent of Lovecrafts monsters from unfathomable space. New archetypes, new rituals, new ways of seeing and interacting with the world are arrived at through a passage through the anomalous, through the liminal. Turner was always quick to point out, however, that liminal spaces are dangerous. They threaten the established order of things.

It is naive to think that within such liminal spaces futures abound resplendant in golden opportunities. It is naive to think that dreams are safe, and comfortable, and that they can't hurt us, because they exist in an area of existence that is untamed. Its very nature is the Wild, and only a fool would dare set foot upon that path with expectations of treasure and adventure without great risk. The fool is my recurring first chapter.

It is good to be afraid. As Mark Twain once said, "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear".



The video below is a sample of an hour long interrogation of one of my muses (a sort of brainstorming). Around midnight, I began to talk to myself in the mirror, asking myself questions, and this soon developed into my questioning of the character that arose during that conversation. I had no intention of exploring the themes that developed, they simply arose. One thing I note now that I look back upon it is that these themes are familiar - a powerful family, a forgotten history - and one might even say cliched. What I enjoyed about this was that it was spontaneous, it was a true to form conversation with a real character, one who will no doubt develop an integrity and deeper substance with further enquiry.

One of the sequences that my digital camera edited out occurred quite late on into the conversation, indeed it was the closing of the conversation. My question "where are they from" became "where are they now", and the image I got back was simply black, the sensation was hunger. Three archetypes spring to mind in retrospect - the Vampire, the Gangster, and the Alien.

I got a sense that the character believed it was an Alien, in outer space somewhere, enveloped in its habitually unfathomable blackness. HOWEVER, beneath that I sensed that the thing had forgotten where it was. It didn't know. It was an anomaly unto itself, and this is what made it all the more...juicy. I was left with the question: what if you forgot who you were, where you were, and how you got there. If you forgot how long you'd been there, would you forget to die? I imagined someone buried somewhere, who's been there so long without stimulation, without feeling, without light or food or any outward sign of its existence that it has become seperate from whatever was once its body. Seperate, and yet bound to it somehow. I got all of this because I saw its eyes in mine - they transformed, aged, and took on a bloated, glassy appearance, and it was as if they were too big for my head. They seemed to be three hundred years old, and had a detached quality to them, as if they suffused and exuded from my own eyes. "The roaming eyes" of the vampire. Quite delicious.