the nature of the fields
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, News, People, Video contest
First, a quick catch-up bit: TVC2008, the winner will still be announced on August 16. I will still be doing a six hour reading and book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Morgantown, WV, on August 17th. Dan McTaggart is scheduled to be there for part of the day. The new CD, Evangelist, is out, we’re just slow with the distribution channels, give us a day or two. williamfdevault.com is coming along slowly, but beautifully. I am feeling better…knowing is always better than the dread of ignorance.
Now to the show.
I have been having a lot of fun, and it has been great therapy for me, catching sparks from some of the art and photographs on deviantart.com (it’s not what you think, zhlub). A special part of that has been the revival of my Fields of Arbol, over on the Amomancer blog and the willingness, even the palpable excitement of some photographers, artists and models to have their works displayed alongside the poems presented and inspired by them.
Some have portfolios so extensive and expressive that I am considering adding a section to the new site that will feature galleries of just specific creatives, (hear that, Cody? Mariya? Kalea? Johanna?). We shall see if I am still alive after the 17th, shall we?
Thanks to my lovely children for the mad sanity they inject into my life, thank you to LiZa for the kindness and Annette, Elena and Karla for the emotional support.
Let’s go make some changes to the world
a little urban renewal every now and then
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Blogosphere, Journal, Links
If you pay much attention to this site or the Amomancer blog, you may notice something went away. Well, two things.
Just moments ago I took BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog out of the layouts of both blogs.
Why? Well, for me, these were never to be social networking sites, designed to see how many people I could get to do quid pro quo hits to pump up the illusion of my readership. I saw a few people come by every day to either site from those sources. But most of those were either curious onlookers who weren’t likely to stay, or people looking to create a sense of reciprocity so I’d go visit their site about how to turn catfish whiskers into nuclear energy and become a millionaire by 30. Oops! Late!
I gave them their chance, but they weren’t my thing. I’m not the kind to seek reciprocity as an illusion for readership. Ask some editors I have worked with. After they are through cringing at the mention of my name and have a few drinks, they’ll tell you, I am a prick when it comes to my readership and my audience. I have been known to yell at audiences I thought were patronizing me. I don’t like being played out of courtesy. Let’s avoid the next logic swerve, shall we?
The notion that a get-rich-quick artist operating out of Samoa hits my site a few times a day, staying for an average time of 1.5 seconds seems a bit more like hit racking and less like anything of any real integrity. Just my attitude. I don’t condemn it, just not for me.
EntreCard will be next. I get a fair number of visitors from that service, but the vast majority are quid pro quo bloggers looking for traffic. I don’t need to win a game of pickup sticks to feel good about myself. Sure, a few have stuck around and I have made a few friends. But from the beginning, I never meant this site to become blogosphere-centric. So I am throwing out the irrelevancies to my vision, speeding up load time, reducing screen freezes and giving me three less headaches to worry about in terms of maintaining social networks.
I got enough on my plate and seem to be accelerating going into the second half of 2008. Who knew?
So, farewell BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog. I wish you and your devotees the best.
The Fields of Arbol, revisited
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, Links
What do C.S. Lewis, a Brazilian photographer and model, a Ukraine graphics artist and a fear of speaking have in common? Me!
A long time ago, in the original City of Legends, there was a section named The Fields of Arbol. Anyone? Anyone?
Well, in C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra Trilogy, the fields of Arbol were the space between planets, the sun’s name in "Old Solar" being "Arbol" (and, in an aside note, the phrase in Old Solar for gold was "Arbol Hru", meaning literally "Sun’s blood").
I digress.
In that section I placed a great many recent and inspired works that I couldn’t figure out what else to do with. Now let’s shoot forward a decade or more.
Today I started a project where, on the Amomancer blog, I am dropping fresh poems, inspired by my browsing of art sites associated with people who may have agreed to help with the williamfdevault.com website revision. Still with me?
So, with the name from C.S. Lewis, pieces inspired by the works of such as Brazilian model and photographer Christina Banderas and graphics goddess Katarina Sokolova, a lovely piece inspired by a beautiful photo representing laliophobia (the fear of speaking) and the results of near-brushes with everything from blindness to body-painted fetish models, I began posting the works (almost all with links, a few with pictures) and say, come wander in the Fields of Arbol with me.
You may actually enjoy yourselves.
Tuesday, almost afternoon
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Evangelist, Journal, Poetry
Bad neck ache from sloppy posture during the Amomancer cleanup. But it was worth it. There are still a few small things to work out, including the possibility of going back and tagging every poem on the blog that has appeared in a book of mine with the name of the book. Whaddaya think?
I am offering Barbara Holmes to opportunity to preview the titular track from Evangelist before the interview. If she wants to listen to it, she would be only the second person aside from myself, to have heard it. I have already shared it with fellow blogger and writer Susan Sonnen, out of deference to her quick response to the previous tracks.
I have a much larger organizational task ahead of me regarding the tags on this blog. Whereas Amomancer had almost six hundred entries, this blog has almost four times as many. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. I have considered bringing on a new E.J., but I am finding my emotional, visceral reaction to people who want to help me on a level with James Caan’s reaction at the end of Misery when a young woman describes herself as his biggest fan. I daily battle a jading stain, and it is difficult for me to admit that. Combine that with my after-effects of my illness (I am being lobbied to cancel the tour) and the only thing that is keeping me from a psychic meltdown of Tunguska proportions is some cunning cross-wiring that keeps me writing. I am keeping busy for the same reason a man who just lost his job climbs into a bottle and stays there, it is holding back the hordes of internal Hell.
And my demons can lick your demons any day of the week. In fact, they;d like to. Hmmm, maybe that’s what I need.
But while I vacillate between screaming madness, blood-curdling stomach cramps and dichotomous satyriasis, I write, slowly bleeding off some of the pressure…if the walls hold long enough…we’ll at least get some good poetry out of it.
the Amomancer cleanup continues
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Blogosphere, Evangelist, Journal, Links
My eyeballs ache. I have been spending a great deal of time reviewing all 579 poems currently on the Amomancer blog. Actually, as some are two-fers, it is more than that.
But, I have flagged the year of each piece in the tags, as well as streamlined other tag usages. The result is a nice index on the side that enables the reader to focus on a particular muse or year.
Some interesting findings so far:
- *157 of the poems on Amomancer were written in 2008, 95 in 2007, 75 in 2006
- *Aubergine is the #1 muse with 114 attributed, 28 to Panther, 24 to Leopard
- *28 pieces are labelled as erotica (which is low, but we weren’t focusing on cleaning up genre as much as year and inspiration.
There’s more fun if you dig, but you can do that on your own time…I have a meeting to go over the cover and packaging for Evangelist
lots of time with lots to do
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Aubergine, Evangelist, Journal, Karla Sasser, Tales of the Amomancer, Video contest
No, I did not get 100 links up yesterday. Thanks for noticing. To quote Wesley in Wanted: What the fuck have you done lately? I may get that tattoo’d across my forehead.
I ran into the situation of how to have 100 links without unbalancing the page. Will have to scratch my head a bit on that one. Slept well, slept hard, have begun sleeping past 4 am (good sign).
Today: Finish cleaning up loose ends, spend a few hours having anxiety attack over how good the Evangelist cut is going to be/not be.
Closing in on completing the tag indexing of Amomancer. Starting from now and working back, there was an imbalance. Starting at the back and moving forward, we are getting a more balanced picture of my catalog posted.
Someone wrote me about the use of Aubergine as a muse-tag, particularly on Amomancer. Bite me. This is to pave the way for the book Aubergine, which is to be the final words that began with As such… Regrettable, but while stupid dogs stick around and bite when kicked, smart ones fold their tents and move on. The last one out is not a quitter, they are an idealist, a romantic. I can live with that legacy. By the way, ahem, the apology was not for the relationship, it was for disbelieving an informed warning. Don’t make assumptions when dealing with me. You’ll be wrong more often than not.
And try not to read too much into the recent spate of KFS oriented poetry. She’s a friend I was once romantically involved with, one of the most honorable and brave people I know, as well as being an excellent writer. And, last time I checked, she had a boyfriend….who knows about us and our track record. She has never re-invented herself, ever. That’s class. That’s integrity.
Anyway, I have a lot of things to do…more to do than I had on Friday…as new stuff comes in faster than I can juggle. But that’s the way…uh huh uh huh…I like it…uh huh uh huh.
Working on a logo…and waiting for the last-minute video entries everyone is promising me…two weeks until deadline.
Ten Things I Believe In (part 8,926)
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, Poetry, music, politics
Just off the top of my head, in response to a friend’s request.
- You never know what is going to happen next, so be prepared for anything and everything and learn to have faith in your adaptability.
- I will be traveling abroad within the next two years.
- Tales of the Amomancer will be my best selling book in my lifetime.
- The longer I live, the more I value couer rage and passion.
- George Bush will go down in history as one of the two or three worst Presidents of the United States.
- As such… remains a most remarkable book, regardless of the irony of its very existence.
- Most people who seem to be liars are not malicious, just gullible or assumptive enough to believe something not true that they heard or perceived.
- I am going to have to learn to perform my music live. This scares me.
- God has one wicked sense of humour. And isn’t afraid to roll it out, especially when you get cocky.
- Brad and Angelina would make a dynamite Ant Man/Wasp team for the Marvel Avengers film.
No, it is not Kevin Costner’s speech from Bull Durham, but I wasn’t going for profound and sexy. Those lists I save for private conversations. By the way, when you have the time (this is even for you stalkers out there) head over to Amomancer today, it is getting a lot of new stuff, and the tagging proceeds.
~so while hanging out in your corner...