Over at In The Balcony on Facebook, the question was raised:

Who are your favorite lead
and supporting characters in
feature-length animated films?

And my answers are:

this guy

and these guys

…and I thot, geeze, put ‘em together and you’re half way to a great sci-fi novel.

These guys ordering breakfast would be epic.

nobody cries
when a loan shark dies

Someone asked me what was so difficult about being called away from one’s muse.  To them — and they weren’t being mean-spirited — writing a story or drawing a picture or composing music was the same as baking a cake or hanging wall paper:  You can always start any time you feel like it.

Well, yeah…if by “any time” you mean “whenever the muse calls”.  As Charles Bukowski famously observed, ”…it comes out of / your soul like a rocket / …being still would / drive you to madness or / suicide or murder”.

Every creator I know is nodding at this (and, yes, there are creators who manage to harness themselves to a steady work schedule; I contend for them the faucet is always on and they don’t know how #%@&ing lucky they are to be able to fill their buckets on their own timetable).

For the rest of you, I’ve made a little simulation after the jump that will give you the barest inkling of what it feels like to be a creator denied access to pen / paper / pixels when inspiration hits.

Hold your breath, follow the jump, and don’t inhale again until you scroll down to “10“.

Read the rest of this article »

“The matter is quite simple.  The Bible is very easy to understand.  But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers.  We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly.  Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly.  My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined.  How would I ever get on in the world?  Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship.  Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.  Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you?  Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God.  Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.” –  Soren Kierkegaard, Provocations

(Found at Plough Publishing)

On April 10, 1963 the USS Thresher (SSN-593)
was lost at sea with all hands, including civilian
workers assigned to observe her sea trials.

they must have known

those last few moments
those last few heartbeats
those last few breaths

they must have known it was the end

did they count them?
did they count each one?
wondering how many before –

the boat tilted sharply, bow up

mocking them

a desperate lunge for the surface

but science failed them

nature failed them

(failed them?  not hardly
they were the ones who
spat in the face of reality
expecting physics to
magically bend to
accommodate their
petty wants and desires)

later,  much much later,
men sitting safe and warm and
dry and miles away from the cold Atlantic

would harrumph and theorize and
decide there had been moisture in the emergency valves

and that freezing cold water and super compressed air allied

to form a perfect ice blockage that kept the crew from blowing the tanks

and resolutely dragged the doomed sub backwards backwards backwards

the crew must have known
they couldn’t have not known

this is one big goddamn clusterfuck
we are all going to die goddamnit

(don’t cuss, don’t cry, pray)

did their minds race ashore?

to family, to wives, to children?

did they ask what the fuck am I doing here?

oh, yeah, it’s good money, making subs for the navy

but did I have to take this job?

the car needs an oil job

shoulda told the wife

we were going to go shopping next week

we –

metal groans, creaks

it’s coming

now thoughts are less organized, less focused

the captain and crew tried everything they could to restart the reactor

power the engines
blow the tanks
drive the boat
back to the surface

there’s nothing left now

but impotence

one of them laughs hysterically

thinks:  “When it’s inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.”

no one asks why he laughs

why would they?

how could he explain it if they did?

the metal groans more loudly
rising in pitch until it becomes
a shriek

and the sub telescopes in on itself

as if God Himself had cupped
bow and stern in His mighty hands

and clapped

the bulkheads collapse on themselves

two high speed freight trains colliding head on

their actual end is mercifully swift

a wall of ice cold water hits them

as gently as a sleet slick sidewalk

after stepping off a skyscraper

in-rushing ocean pulverizes soft, frail flesh

like a spider caught between a concrete floor

and a ball peen hammer

not even time for a blink

and they’re dead

just food for the sea

 (c) Buzz Dixon

As most of you know, my first job in show biz was a lot attendant at a drive-in theater.  Today while putzing around doing research on the InterWebs, I stumbled across these gorgeous but heartbreaking[1] photos of an abandoned drive-in in Rhode Island[2] taken by Reana Rose.[3]

I’m posting small versions of three of her shots here; you really need to visit her blog & see these & her other work in full.

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[1]  Well, to me, at least…

[2]  H.P. Lovecraft’s old stomping — or should I say slithering? — grounds.

[3]  A nom de shutter; you can find her on FB if you go to her old blog

“I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals.  I don’t respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.”

– Brendan Behan

(out of an old NatLamp, IIRC…)