Month: February 2017

Quickie Review: PATERSON (2016)

PATERSON strikes me as AMERICAN SPLENDOR (the comic, not the film) for the beautiful people. The ones with artistic tendencies, who are old enough to accept the reality of a workday job but too young to be completely jaded about it yet. Adam Driver is no Harvey Pekar. Driver, a bus driver, goes about his daily routine, observing and absorbing life along his route — the characters, the conversations, the situations (like, being a driver named Paterson, driving through Paterson) — living a poetic life in every sense of the word.

(Spoilers near the end of the post.)

This film’s strength as a piece of art is that you’re able to project a little bit onto it. Some reviewers see this as a piece about a man moving through his poetic life, poetically, with a Zen-like focus on the infinite variety of subjects he encounters in his daily route. His passengers, fellow bar patrons, his artistic (if unfocused) wife and her dog are stops along his way which he soaks up and documents in his poems. And when Paterson’s life is disrupted in the one way it could be, he eventually comes to treat it as the momentary aberration it is, and his poetic equilibrium is restored.

I see something different, though. I see an writer who never publishes, chafing a little against his good-enough routine but with little reason to change anything. And when he pays the price for this life, which then offers him an opening to make a change, here comes the poetic Universe in the form of a magical Japanese man to usher him back. And Paterson does go back, willingly, into that prison and closes the door behind him.

SPOILER here, but I think it’s worth mentioning how this film was a lesson in establishing plot threads that aren’t wrapped up, but which totally works because those things aren’t what the film is about anyway. I was expecting a dog-napping, a smashed guitar, ruined cupcakes, a divorce, or a newly discovered twin. We get none of that, but it’s okay. Depending on your point of view, this is either a film about choosing to live a pure, artistic life for its own sake or it’s about condemning yourself to an existential hell that was ultimately of your own making.

Either way is poetic to me.

Thanks, Boskone 54!

I think I had the most fun I’ve ever had at Boskone as a part of this year’s program. I probably could’ve done a better job moderating “So You Wanna Be a Time Lord.” Things got a little heated near the end, but I think most folks walked out with smiles. “The Horror Boom and the Second Wave” and “Fear Factor” panels were great fun and I’m wondering if that was so because my point of view on these topics was that of a fan, and not so much as “a fantasy/sf writer.” I did have occasion to let that perspective sneak in a couple of times; that was cool, too.

I was down with OPP (Other People’s Panels) this year, too. I probably need to lay off the various “writers on writing” panels at cons, though — not because I feel I have nothing to learn but really, my further learning needs to be about doing at this point. Still, I did pick up a couple of real gems.

Caught a couple of films, too. I’d heard of, but never watched David L. Wolper’s 1963 documentary STORY OF THE WRITER on Ray Bradbury. I wish someone would’ve tied me down CLOCKWORK ORANGE-style and made me watch this when I started writing. I ruminated on this video for most of the ride back from MA to NY for a many reasons, not the least of which is because this is a snapshot of Bradbury’s life at 43 (like someone else I know). I know, I know, can’t compare yourself to other people, least of all a legend in the field. But got’damn, if this isn’t yet another call to get my ass in gear…

The other was Roger Corman’s 1963 adaptation of THE RAVEN. C’mon, who doesn’t like that one? I’d actually forgotten that Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay, and that a very young Jack Nicholson was in it, too!

I succumbed to Boskone Twitter’s (implied) dare to adopt the busted Baphomet statue I found in my apartment complex’s laundry room and use it as a prop for the piece I performed for the Villains Open Mic slam.

This is the second year in a row that someone suggested I do something with the pieces I performed. Maybe this year, I’ll listen. I wonder what I’ll have to cook up next year?

See you at 55!

“I can STILL hear you saying you would NEVER break the chain…” [January 2017]

What you’re seeing up there is my attempt at a January writing streak. Each red X is a day I met a preset minimum fiction writing/editing goal. The end goal, of course, is to have as long a chain of Xs as possible. I’m not off to a hot start this month, but we’ll find out together how February turns out.

I tried posting these a few years back, but it lasted all of five minutes. I’m gonna try public accountability again though, if for no other reason than to live out the main takeaway from my Viable Paradise experience: Put up or shut up.

The Ballad of Baphomet with the Broken Horn

The public laundry rooms in my apartment complex have glass doors, and when I walked past one on my way to the bus to work the other day, I caught this little guy sitting on the freebie table out of the corner of my eye. I thought to myself, “That can’t be what I think it is.” and I doubled back.

Times are tough when the devil can’t get a break.

I stopped to stare at it. Not because of leftover Satanic influence from my Dungeons & Dragons days (at least I hope!), but because of the total absurdity of its existence in this room.

There’s a story behind that statue, and it began with a person or persons who decided, for whatever reason, “I need a graven visage of the Evil One, the Horned Beast, the Lord of Lies, the Prince of Darkness!” Maybe I have neighbors who are genuine Satan worshippers. Or, maybe just dark metal wannabes. Maybe contemporaries from my D&D days, or someone who just wanted to shock and amaze their roommates with a gag gift.

In any case, the tale ends when this person or persons decide, presumably after its right horn got busted off, “Eh… the rest of it is still good. Maybe someone else might want it.”

Twenty+ consecutive years of Catholic education during my formative years makes this repulsive at a gut level. But those days are long past. Not only am I dying to know what the middle of its story is, it’s kind of a pathetic end for anything to get discarded on a freebie table in an apartment laundry room.

Come to think of it… maybe a prop would be useful for the horror panels I’m on at Boskone next week… hm…

Now I wonder if it’s still there…?