cafenowhere

I posted this on my Patreon last month, and now that it's available to read for everyone, I thought I'd post it here too. 

CW for brief mention, near the end, of long-past suicidality

 

Last week my ageing werewolf poem “Dodging the Bullet” appeared at Small Wonders. This poem is a companion piece to “Through the Keyhole”, which appeared in the Nov/Dec 2023 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

“Through the Keyhole” is the more traditional werewolf poem, focusing on the body horror of transformation, with the modern twist that, with mighty effort, one can control the transformation back to human so that one’s body better suits one’s identity. “Dodging the Bullet” challenges the mythos of the angsty werewolf doomed to a tragic death. I wrote it thinking about people who were convinced they’d die young, but then did not. These people live with such gratitude and sweet surprise, savoring milestones they never expected to see. I wanted to capture their sense of wonder.

Both poems have their genesis in a trip to Denver for the Sirens Conference (may it soon return!). I wrote “Through the Keyhole” while waiting in the Denver airport for my ride to the hotel. I drafted “Dodging the Bullet” at the hotel bar that night. I ended up scrapping most of my notes for it, substantially revising it when I got home, but the core idea was there. I don’t know why I had werewolves on the brain at the time. These poems are completely unrelated to the werewolf novel I wrote many years ago. I was listening to the audiobook Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith at the time. So maybe I was thinking about the lockstep of evolution and how to pry from it a modicum of self-actualization, how we can deviate from programming and write our own endings.

The phrase “to see two human looks away” is something I’ve been carrying around for over 20 years, since I first researched my werewolf novel. Unfortunately, I can’t find the index cards I used for that research, so I don’t know the provenance. I think the saying may have been attributed to Native Americans, but folks have been known to put their words into other people’s mouths to sound wise, so that’s not helpful. I don’t know if wolves can actually see twice as far as humans. They have a wider field of vision and can see more on the horizon without moving their heads. They can also detect more shades of gray than humans can. Consensus seems to be that wolves can see faster than us, if not farther. But I’d been holding onto “two human looks away” for decades, so I was damn well going to use it.

“Dodging the Bullet” may be my version of “Sometimes” by Sheenagh Pugh, a poem that acknowledges, “Hey, maybe things aren’t always terrible, maybe sometimes it all works out.” For me, realizing how often things go right is a privilege of ageing. In youth I could be callow and pessimistic, maybe because I didn’t really believe I was destructible, no matter how harsh the universe or suicidal my ideation. But the longer I live this fragile life, the more I see, far more often than seems statistically likely, the happy endings. As Pugh writes, “may it happen for you.”

Apologies to those who have already seen this update on Bluesky, but I'm super psyched to announce my poetry debut in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. My poem "Through the Keyhole" is about a werewolf who figures out how to use their transformational powers to be their best self. Look for the November/December 2023 issue on newsstands or where you buy magazines; I don't think you can purchase one issue online.

CORRECTION: You can buy a single issue of F&SF (epub, mobi or PDF) from Weightless Books. Thanks to Gwynne for pointing that out.

The other night I noticed that Netflix has Insidious: The Red Door available and I'm still searching for horror movies, so I considered watching it. The only thing was, I couldn't remember if I'd seen the first Insidious and I didn't want to watch a sequel if I didn't remember the original. So I looked up the movie and realized I'd been mistaking Insidious, which I'd never watched, for Sinister, another one-word-title horror movie. I remember Sinister well, except for it's name apparently, because it starred Ethan Hawke as a writer (as imagined by Hollywood, so completely unrealistic) and the kills were...unlikely, I'll say.

While figuring this out, I realized that The Red Door is the FOURTH movie in a franchise. The second Insidious movie picks up right where the first one leaves off (with Jenna Ortega in a tiny role; that girl is in all the horror movies lately VIVA LA RAZA!). The third film seems to abandon the original characters while keeping the general premise. And the fourth film returns to (at least some of) the original characters. Of course, I could not start with the FOURTH movie in a franchise, so I watched both one and two. The cast includes two ghost hunter types in addition to a medium. I cannot stand ghost hunting tv shows and these guys were definitely in that mold, rather than modeled after, say, the paranormal investigators in Poltergeist or, ten years earlier, The Haunting of Hell House. The only ghost hunters I have any chill for are the Ghostfacers in Supernatural, who proved "Gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day."

There are some nice callbacks to the original in the second Insidious. It makes sense that this installment is called Chapter 2. But I'm unsure that those moments of "oh, that's what was happening" are enough to offset the extremely tedious nature of the sequel. There's flashbacks and recaps to orient the new viewer, but ***SPOILERS FOR  A 13-YEAR-OLD MOVIE***there's also a duality to the original--what happened to the son also happened to the father when he was a child--that feels stretched too thin for a whole 'nother movie. To verve it up, a serial killer is tossed into the mix, which gives the characters an excuse to explore an abandoned hospital and a different haunted house.

That was something interesting to me--all these haunted houses were multi-story, forcing characters to run up and down the stairs to check on children or investigate ghostly activities. It's unclear how the family of five, relying solely on the father's salary as a public school teacher, could even afford such houses. (Or how two single mothers, each with a single child, both ended up in mansions.) So many floors, so many doors, so many hiding places. That makes for a good horror movie--all the built-in jump scares--but it also makes me wonder why in so many movies, being haunted is an affliction of the affluent, who are presented as being middle class. It's like punishment: "What do you expect, with all those rooms?" There's also a suggestion of history in these big houses, but for the main family at the heart of the story, the ghosts are "imported", not linked to the house itself. So it's other people's history that haunts. It reminds me of what Dr. Kinitra Brooks said at Sirens in 2021 about how the flood of Evil Character redemptions arcs trends alongside white guilt.

Watching the preview of Insidious: The Red Door that plays when one's  noodling around Netflix gives me the impression that this sequel also relies on a lot of retelling. Frankly I'm not invested enough to continue the Insidious marathon.

I can't believe WisCon was only two weeks ago. I've been so busy that it feels like a month ago to me.

One good reason I've been busy is that it's my month to acquire poems for Strange Horizons. As of this morning I have 65 submissions awaiting decision. More than half of those I've already read and I'm sitting with them as I sort out my thoughts. As you may know, Strange Horizons is holding its annual Kickstarter. So, in addition to the regular issue that came out this week, we've been releasing works as we hit goals. At $8000, Mary Soon Lee's poem "I, Universe" was unlocked. I find this poem absolutely delightful! Once we hit $11,000, we'll present a hypertext poem by J.L. Jones that I accepted titled "You, Remodeled, Remade". I can't wait for folks to play with this piece, so here's hoping we make that goal soon!

A bad reason for this month's busyness was my inability to get a prescription renewed. ( healthcare shenanigans )

I haven't touched the novel this week. I've been pondering a plot point that I don't know if I'll keep. The temptation to keep writing and worry about it later is strong, just so I can feel like I'm doing something. But I know "something" is hard to dismantle in rewrites, so I am trying to be patient with myself. Maybe the answer will come to me this weekend.

This weekend José and I attended a progressive poetry reading. It’s kind of like a bar crawl, but instead of bars, you move from one poetry reading to the next. The readings were held outside a neighborhood bakery, on someone’s front lawn, in a backyard, and the like. I was delighted when one poet read a poem published by Strange Horizons. I must have yipped or gasped audibly because the poet smiled and said, “Yes, we love Strange Horizons.” It’s always a surprise when my literary circle and SFF circle overlap.

It was a little chilly to be sitting outside, so J and I only went to three of the spots. We made sure to attend the reading where a colleague of J’s was a participant. That colleague tends to write speculative poetry but I think he exclusively submits to literary markets. In any case, he read a newer piece he’d told us about at a Latinx Council dinner. It was about a scorpion that wanted to marry a shoe. Another poet shared a piece about wanting to hold a goose, which had a response delivered by her boyfriend, that demanded the goose back off, he wouldn’t let a bird steal his girlfriend. It’s unfortunate the third poet didn’t continue the animal theme.

Last week, I watched Infinity Pool, directed by Brandon Cronenberg. I was disappointed. The premise is an interesting one: what if you could create a doppelganger of yourself that would take the punishments, endure the consequences, of your bad actions? Unfortunately, the only sane character quickly exits the experiment, leaving you no one to root for. Also, the protagonist’s devolution includes drug use, which led to too many “trippy” scenes of sensory distortion and sexual antics/fantasies. They were so tedious. I think Brandon Cronenberg’s made three films. Antiviral left me cold, but I really liked Possessor. Now this. I guess his work is hit-or-miss for me.

Right now I’m reading Shiny Things: Reflective Surfaces and Their Mixed Meanings. It is fascinating. The authors discuss how shininess can indicate wealth, power, and transcendence or it can signal that something is cheap, ubiquitous, and tacky. Shininess is disruptive, because it dematerializes the surface of a thing so we stop looking at it and begin looking into it. There’s a whole section devoted to Dutch Golden Age art and the worshipful (fetishistic) representation of various forms of shine. The section I just finished reading talks about how smudges, though common on shiny objects, are rarely if ever portrayed in art (big, if true) and just how hard it is to depict a smudge as intentional. “The central issue of depiction is that a smudge on a shiny surface is a disruption on an already disrupted form.” I love thinking about this stuff.  

What did you do this weekend? Seen any good movies recently?

About two weeks ago, I finally made arrangements to attend this year's WisCon in person. It will not be the first con I've attended during the pandemic, as I went to Sirens in 2021, but I'm still nervous about going. I wanted to attend Readercon, too, but I couldn't face the prospect of three different airports. When I flew to Sirens, it was a straight flight with mask mandate in effect, but I was still grossed out by the number of people I saw who weren't wearing, or were improperly wearing, masks. WisCon is within driving distance for me, which I hope cuts down on my risk of Covid exposure. I think I will get a booster before the trip, just for extra protection. I don't expect to be on any panels but I might do a reading with a group.

 

We started the week at a disadvantage. On Sunday, the garage door spring broke, trapping our car inside the garage. We had to have someone from the garage door company come out on Monday, and fortunately they were able to fix the spring, so the door is again operational. We were prepared for them to say the door was a goner and they could only release the car. We are going to replace the motor for the garage door once they can get us scheduled. J says it should be more reliable during the winter and quieter too. I hope a new motor also means the whole house will no longer shake when the garage opens and closes.

On Wednesday, José gave a talk for the city's Office of Equity and Human Rights titled "Stepping Back Before Stepping In: Preparing for Conversations in a Modern World." He discussed sharing pronouns as part of introducing oneself, the importance of pronouncing people's names correctly, how to avoid microaggressions, using inclusive language, and making accommodations. I think he did a really good job. He introduced resources I'd never encountered before (and I'm beyond Inclusivity-101) and spoke from his own personal experience.

For example, he related how, as a child he was in a class with another child named José Jiménez and the teacher asked if he had a nickname she could use. Being young enough not to know the word "nickname" he said no--and ended up being called Panchito (meaning Little Frank). Out of desperation, because José Jiménez is a very common name, he resorted to using JJ as his name for the next thirty-some years. It was only when we collaborated on a poem and he used his proper name in the byline that anything changed. A very thoughtful editor inquired if he used an accent on the e in José and the question eventually led him to reclaim his name, accents and all.

In the evenings we have been watching two shows on Netflix, one a Korean time-travel series called "Sisyphus" and the other a Turkish series called "Hot Skull." The Turkish series is more interesting to me, as it has a very similar storyline to one of my favorite horror movies, Pontypool. In "Hot Skull," a semantic virus causes a pandemic of "jabberers," people who can speak nothing but nonsense. Mostly it's syntactical but it's still nonsense. Listening to the jabberers is a little like how I feel after a long day of reading poetry. I feel like I'm on the verge of understanding but my brain can't make that last connection. The reluctant protagonist of "Hot Skull" has these beautiful moments of surreal whimsy that save the show from being too somber but it's definitely a pandemic dystopia.

Work-wise, I'm still winnowing down the Strange Horizons poetry submissions I received in January. And I keep chugging away at the novel. On a good day, I produce 800 to 1000 words. Obviously, they can't all be good days, so I'm having to be patient with my characters and myself. I'm nearing 30K, which should be about a third of the way through.

Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend? Or for Valentine's Day?

J and I took a long weekend (Thursday through Tuesday) to drive to Estes Park, Colorado, to see Murder By Death play at The Stanley Hotel Concert Hall. We stayed in the historic Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for Stephen King's The Shining. The hotel really leans into its spooky reputation. The whiskey bar served a Redrum Punch and the brunch place had dishes called "Danny Boy!" and "Wendy? Darling?" When we first rode the elevator up to our room on the third floor, an employee was riding with us and, upon learning it was our first visit, assured us that we would get scared.

We didn't. None of the spirits on site wanted anything to do with us, not even Cassie, the dog that scratches at people's doors to be let in and then sleeps in a warm puddle at the foot of the bed. We did happen upon a graveyard in one of our rambles on the property; it was a pet cemetery for one cat and several dogs that lived at the hotel. This wasn't creepy so much as bittersweet. Several of the graves had tokens left on the gravestone and one had a squeaky toy at the base of the stone. It was heartening to see the animals are still loved.



This was our third MBD concert, but the first without any other acts. I discovered I actually like seeing an opening act or two. It enhances the anticipation for the headliners. Before the music, there was a psychedelic slideshow featuring stills from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.



The hotel tries to appeal to fans of both Stephen King's original The Shining and the Kubrick version. For example, even though the book featured animal topiaries that come to life to threaten the characters, the hotel has a (fledgling) hedge maze, because so many tourists expected a maze. MBD likewise mixed the two versions: their slideshow was Kubrick but their posters on sale featured sparring lion topiaries.

MBD were in fine form and played a mix of old and new songs, including their cover of "Blue Christmas." The floor throbbed with the volume of the music, and at one point everyone was stomping and J imagined the floor caving in. Throughout the concert the slideshow continued, mostly featuring clips from black and white movies, including westerns, a werewolf flick, and maybe even a documentary about Inquisition-style torture devices (no gore, only creep).

It was amazing to be that high up in the mountains (~7800 ft above sea level), and I couldn't stop thinking about how heinous the construction must've been in 1909-ish. Rich people and their whims! One year when the Stanleys invited Harry Houdini to perform at Estes Park, Houdini sent 6 glass cases up the mountain for his big act, and only 2 cases made it intact. So even once the resort was established, it was obviously still a bumpy trip. The air was so dry that every time J pushed the button for the elevator, he got a wicked shock--one and two inch arcs in blue AND white. We joked that the elevator didn't like J, but the one time I pushed the button, I got a little shock, too.



This was our first extended trip without Ash. We agreed that it was time to start doing more things as a couple and let Ash exercise his new-adult privileges and responsibilities. J kept thinking he was leaving something behind when we left the whiskey bar or restaurants, but I told him I knew that feeling from my first women's retreat--it was being without Ash that caused it! 

All in all, we had a fabulous time and I would love to do it again. And I may get my chance, since MBD has been performing around New Year's Eve at The Stanley for ten years now.

I got up early this morning for a neurology appointment but when I checked in, all the computers in the doctor's office were down. The receptionist had tried to call me, but my phone was set to Do Not Disturb because I am not a morning person. They have to wait until the computers are back up before they can even reschedule. It's kinda funny to me, because my exams at these appointments are so primitive. It's all "Stick out your tongue, follow my fingers, let's check your reflexes, resist when I push on this" etc. No computers necessary. Except they are, for documentation, I suppose. At any rate, I find myself with some extra time this morning. 

My cat has a vet appointment this afternoon. I hope he actually gets to see a doctor.

On Wednesday, I took the day off from my novel. I wrote a book review that I'll post on Patreon today and I went to lunch with friend. After lunch, my friend and I went secondhand shopping. I found some neat sugar skull-themed fabric that I can use for next year's Dia de los Muertos ofrenda. I also got a book titled My Lobotomy, A Memoir by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming. That should be interesting.

Yesterday I put in another 1K words on the novel, and it wasn't painful, probably because I spent some time adding sensory details to previous scenes. Scenes don't feel real to me unless they're filtered through someone's senses. The way this book is coming to me is through dialogue, but that means in the first pass, it's all talking heads. I have to go back and ground the events with details. 

We finally got some snow, but just a dusting that swirls, serpentine, when the wind blows. It also makes the pavement slippery, which we discovered last night when J took me to Barnes and Noble so I could pick out a planner for the new year. It's cold enough that I wanted to hurry into the store, but I had to cling to J and move slowly so as not to slip.

As for the planner, I went with the Designworks Ink Standard Issue Agenda weekly planner in grey. It's bigger than my current Carpe Fucking Diem planner but I wanted something more neutral. No more cussing but no inspirational quotes, either. I'll probably spend some time this weekend transferring important dates and such from the old planner to the new. Exciting.

What are your plans for the weekend?

My first editing shift for Strange Horizons was in September, and the first of my selections went live yesterday: "Statue of David with Top Surgery Scars" by Devin S. Turk. This poem was pretty much an instabuy. I loved it the first time I read it and I still love it for the way it makes me rethink the statue of David and the story of David and Goliath. How different would history and culture be if David, the statue or the character, was trans? It also makes me wonder about the untouchability of sculpture in museums and how that untouchability transfers to the subject of the sculpture. And can we truly understand a work if we can't touch it? What if we can't see ourselves in it? In addition to all the questions it awakens, this poem has a sense of humor. I delight every time in the image of the "I" of the poem ducking under the velvet ropes, armed with a bottle of nail polish. I feel very lucky to have been the acquiring editor of this poem.