Return to Weimar and Poetry

13 more days and I will return to University. I'm very excited, I can't wait. I wish I was there already. There is only so much of hanging out in the same cafe and messing around that a guy can take and I believe I have reached my limit. Alright, I'll miss my friends and my cafe. But I'll have friends waiting for me back at Waterloo, as well as a start to the Weimar Mage game. My vacation from that is over and I think I have found a stress free way of developing the entire consiliuum. Tarot Cards.

The Mage: the Awakening sourebook, Keys to the Supernal Tarot, give advise on how to create a character through randomly drawing Tarot cards. I think this could be a really good idea, as it saves me the time to come up with a concept to start with. I can just draw five cards from a Tarot deck, and I happen to own a Rider-Waite Tarot deck, and then work out the character from what I've got. It's a brilliantly simply way to develop this and I don't have to worry about getting my hair in a bunch. I'm also thinking about using Tarot cards to develop plot, and giving all the PCs and in-character reading, I can use the images in that for further plot devices with the character. Also, I figure that if I'm going to do a Mage game right, which is part of the reason I'm running this, I'm going to need some ancient magical, religious or philosophical background to draw symbolism from. Tarot is already built into the game. I was going to work in Kabbalah, but the rules for replacing that as the Magical system seem a bit complcated and I want to work through what the Sephirot actually mean.

I'm also reading, or trying to read, quite alot of poetry. I'm looking into Arthur Rimbaud again, and he's quite a fine poet. I don't speak his native language, but I'm reading the Wyatt Mason translation and I think that's pretty good. I'm a bit worried about reading poets in translation, because I worry that I'm not actually reading the poet, but the translator. Strangelly, I don't have this problem when I read Bolano or Dostoyevsky. Poetry is different. Poetry is about the words. Still, I like Bolano's language, even if I'm not reading Bolano in his native language. The words are still good and I like how they feel. Maybe I'm reading Rimbaud after all.

I'm also reading the poetry of Ezra Pound, because Ezra Pound is supposed to be a very important poet. For some reason I'm starting with the Cantos, which is supposed to be a major piece of 20th century poetry and Pound's greatest written work, which he wrote for most of his life. I'm not sure what I think of Pound, but the entire world of poetry is still very new to me. The only poet I can say I really like is Allen Ginsberg, and I sometimes wonder if I have simply decided to like him. I also like Gerard Manley Hopkins and T.S. Eliot. I guess I like more poets then I think. I guess that because of all this, I'm trying to become a poet. Once University starts, I plan on writing a good deal of poetry and read as much poetry as I can.

The idea of becoming a poet probubly came from listening to Indeefeed: Performance Poetry. As such, I'm inspired by slam poetry and I think most of the poetry I write now comes from a slam aesthetic. I feel poetry, at least modern poetry, is meant to be an oral tradition. I'm thinking of doing a thing on youtube, where I would read my poetry for videos. So far the only think I can think of for putting up are my poems "Anarchy Baby" and my only published short story, which I think I might go over. I didn't edit it the first time, and I think that I could do better with it. I have an account set up, but I need to figure out where I can get a camera to film the readings and then put them on the youtube. Thankfully, I have a cousin who's in the computer world and he will be with me on my floor. When I have something up I'll probubly put it up on my blog.

Well, I'm talking with a friend. I better go.

So How Is Your Summer Going, Dylan?

I really hate summer.

There are many reasons for me hating summer. The one that most easily comes to mind is that it is hot and I do not do well with heat. At all. And the problem with this can largely be tied to my feet. They are very sensitive and generally need socks. I tried wearing one of those new rubber clog shoes that my mom picked up and my feet were achy and sweaty. Also, because I hate footie socks with every fiber of my being, I can only wear normal socks and because of the all-powerful laws of fashion I cannot wear shorts and longs socks. It's annoying.

Another thing I hate about summer is that I have nothing to do. This is especially important this summer because I have nothing to keep me occupied except my erratic reading and writing patterns. However, I do feel I have written more then I have written more and some good stuff too. I'm back at Naos and Helen, since I'm now working at them through the medium of the short story. This gives me the chance to explore them in short bursts which my attention span and patience allow. I'm working on two Naos and Helen stories more or less simultaneously now, but one of them is pretty psychological and is getting hard for me to write, since I want the characters to act naturally as compared to the world they live in which is bat shit insane.

On the subject on my ability to write things I am having doubts about my capability in the means of poetry. This I blame on Stephen Fry. I've been trying to read his book The Ode Less Travelled, to get an understanding of how metre works and I don't think I'm that good at metre. I try to write stuff in metre and I'm thrown off. Then I try to write free verse, but I can't get that either and then I feel guilty because I don't read a lot of poetry and when I do I can barely understand it, though recently I did read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock a couple times and I think I got that, although I picked up at some point it was about prostitutes and impotence so that may have helped me. Still, I appreciate T.S. Eliot's poetry and I like his style.

In other news, I sent my short story "Godot is Dead," out to The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction. I'm not sure if they'll take it. I think the story is pretty out there, but I don't know if it is the kind of out there that Bizarro fiction demands. Also, it's a Jack Monsairty story, so it has a "wizard," though I think of Jack more as an occultist, and that might turn them off. I have only sent it out recently and I have yet to here back. I don't know exactly how long I should be waiting, the next issue will be published in October so I imagine before or around I get to University.

Going Home

I'm going home today. I'm going to come back two more times for school, maybe more for the Changeling LARP. They've finally called me about it, and I hope I can get in on it.

Well, what can I say about my first term. It had it's ups and downs, but I'm a bit worried about were it is going. Mom is talking about it like it's work, which I don't think University should be. I think University should be more fun, because I'm learning all kinds of new things. I'm not even sure that I should think much about work after reading Pieper. I think I'm going to keep my copy of "Leisure, the Basis of Culture," since I think it has some good points. My religion books and the Plato Dialouges I'm going to give to the Campus Used Bookstore. I'm also keeping all the English books I got. Which would be "The Green Man," by Kingsley Amis, "Anglo-Saxon Attitudes," by Angus Wilson, "The Rebel Angels," by Robertson Davies, "Maus, Vol 1" by Art Spiegelmen, and "The In-between World of Vikram Lall," by M.G. Vassanji, because my mother would like that one. One thing I can say about University, by the time I'm out of here I'll have a much more varied library.

Now of course, there is the issue of finding a job. I'm not going to completely bang that idea, because I don't have much experience with jobs and as such can't be called to make any large judgements on them, and it would give me something to do and money. I don't really have much drive to be a working man however. I want to be a writer and that is all. I'm also starting to wonder if being a career writer is a goal. That isn't to say that I don't want a career as a writer, but I also don't want to have a career as anything else. It's a bit confusing, I know. I've been reading alot of Remodernist Manifestos recently. Remodernism is a theory of art that is against conceptual art because of it's spiritual bankruptcy. I've been studying this and am trying to figure out if this applies to my work, or how I can become a Remodernist. I've never been involved in an actual art movement before, and I think Remodernism has some good ideas. The problem is it seems to be mostly made up of painters, so if anyone is going to figure out what Remodernist Literature looks like it's going to have to be me.

I'M OUT!!!

Yeah! I'm out of school. Summer is here and I don't have to go to School, I can goof of all day. Huzzah!
So yeah, I'm out of school. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with all this free time. I figure I could try blogging more. I've been thinking about making a post on every 5th, 7th, 19th and 23rd day of the month because they are my special numbers. Mom says I should try doing a blog post every 23 hours. I don't know if I can work that but it would stave of boredom.
And there is the novel. I plan on working really hard on my novel so I can get it done by the end of summer. I figure I can get at least three chapters of it done this week. That and I'm going to get started on the 1960's stories.
On the subject of the number 23, I'm working a thing in where the number 23 plays a role in each of the characters lives in some way. Here's what I've got so far.

• David Howl only sold 23 copies of his first novel.
  
• Jack Blackwright wakes up in the Soho district of London with a 23 year memory gap.
• Oothoon was 23 years old when she left the Brides of Yazan.

Okay, that's all I've got so far. I also have the idea that some of the characters were born on the 23th of something.
I've also been wondering what else I should actually do. There are a lot of things I want to work in to this series. Here, I'll make a list.

1. My Main Pantheon, this is going in as it is way to important to the plot
2. Historic Feel of Haight-Ashbury in the 1960's, I'm probably going to have to find people for this or at least read a whole lot of books
3. A Cast similar to that on Lost, Basically, a bunch of people from all walks of life who are drawn together by a similar force and end up creating a sort of tribe.
4. Historical Figures, I want to work real people into the story line. So far all I got is that The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and the Jefferson Airplane are going to appear, a possible Beatles cameo, and Charles Manson seems to be turning into an antagonist. I'm also thinking Ken Kesey might turn out to be a major character. Oh, and the Black Panthers come in here somewhere.
5. Fictional Characters, I've been thinking about working fictional characters into the universe. I already have an idea that Cthulhu, or at least something like Cthulhu, turns up. Actually, Steph knows that Cthulhu comes up. I also see Jerry Cornelius appearing somewhere in the story, mainly around the London stories. The problem is I don't know if Michael Moorcock would allow me to use Jerry Cornelius in a story. If not I'm probably going to have to come up with some alternate version, which would also be fun. Maybe I should do that instead. Forget I wrote this down.
6. Metafiction, I've been really into this ever since I read Animal Man. There's an entire list of things and I would like to work as many of them in as possible.
   
7. Some kind of important link to Mythania, Somehow the characters should be aware of Mythania, even if most of them never go there. I'm thinking that two of the characters end up discovering they share the same fantasy world and end up writing a novel, which could also work into the Metafiction element, making it a story-within-a-story.
   

Okay, that's all I can think off. So, time is running out on this computer,so I'm going to sign out now.

Practically out

Well, as you know I have been feeling very small and lonely. You'll be pleased to hear that I have exponetially increased my MSN contacts. Bad news is that nobody is on at the moment.
In the meanwhile, I'll be officially out of school by Friday afternoon. I just need to get my co-op project done, which it half is already. I am feeling very good about myself today. I plan on having a big celebration after getting out of school. I'm going to see if I can talk my mom into driving me to a used bookstore and seeing if I can't get myself the first book of the Illuminatus trilogy.

I just have to get my exam done in History and then I'm set. I'm not overly worried about it, because I feel I got it under control. Still, this isn't my best class. I'm going to have to look over the French Revolution and the reign of Napoleon.

I'm really enjoying Last.fm. Again, thanks to Dan for introducing me. I just found all these cool examples of tracks by genres. I'm going through surf rock at the moment. I'm liseaning to a really cool version of "Walking on the Moon," by somebody called getAmped. But then when I clicked on it to see who they were I lost track of the thing. Curses. So, last.fm isn't perfect.

I can't write anymore, I'm going to go hide in my room