City of Legends

Van Morrison croons "Crazy Love" into my skull as I compose these words, these thoughts and noughts.  Let’s hear it for blip.fm, I am deriving great enjoyment from them.  Plus, a lot of my videos and recordings are bouncing around on there, getting international airplay.  No complaint.

Did some writing this weekend, but it was more of an experiential weekend.  Doing things…reading, going for walks, playing with the dog, discussing ten thousand points of wonder with the boys, making plans, agonizing over my reading lists for Guerrilla Poetry Day on July 5th (don’t get me started on the itinerary).  I even got my Brazilian phone connections to work and got to spend a few precious moments Liza Lorraine, with a friend down there (yes, the same one I have been writing poetry about…do your own math).

I am a fortunate soul.  I have seen things you wouldn’t believe and done things that would confound even me.  No ego to that, merely awareness of how complex and amazing of a life this is. 

My friend, Lupi Basil, surfaced on FaceBook.  Lupi, you may recall, is/was the publisher and editor of "Emotions" magazine, which has been very kind to me in the past.  Previously one of her sons did a breakdown of one of my CDs on this very blog…I’ll have to look it up again some time, it was wonderfully detailed and analytical. 

A few misplaced friends surfaced.  Some seemed to slip further into the dispassionate ether.  The suspected bone spur in my right heel is getting worse, but I am determined to intensify my training.  Pain is a state of mind.  I have developed, I find, an aversion to doctors for anything other than emergency surgery.  My limp is becoming pronounced as the pain intensifies.  Maybe Ann was right and I will end up in a wheelchair one day.

Oh, I am now ten days free of measurable caffeine in my diet.  The first several days were painful, but having seen the health risks, the damage already done and known so many people in my life over the years who have been bent and broken by their addictions, I am determined to identify and eliminate my own.

Okay, I could use a new addiction in my life.  Something in a new woman, perhaps…just a thought.

Maybe it is time to revive the graphic novel project, but take it a step or ten further (farther?).

1. Start with the concept of merely doing a graphic novel. Nothing else on the table.
2. Decide the story, or at least the main characters. The original project was to be called "The Slightly Deranged Adventures of Skye Meadows" and my second wife, the model, was going to be the basis for the main character’s appearance. She was enthusiastic about the project.
3. Write it entirely in poetic narrative form, perhaps even as an epic poem, all dialog and narrative. This is a new element injected into the project. Put my stamp on it.
4. Concurrent with this, work with one or more of the artists/photographers I have encountered of late and have them feed the engine with photographs that can then be, by them, myself or a third party, basically rotoscoped via Photoshop, to form the basic art. Detail and colouring to be determined by later work.

I could use any or all or none or an amalgam of any of the dozen or so novel concepts I have been working with, from my sci-fi epic "Critical Radius" to "Tales of the Amomancer" to "…Skye Meadows". The mind boggles. I am bored and looking for something or someone to champion, I am in my roninspace.

A get-well quick wish to my friend and mentor (not a lot of people earn that title in this life) Yvonne Cronin, who is recuperating from a mild stroke last week. Today is her birthday. Chocolate is my prescription. Yvonne used to have a bumper sticker that read "Just give me the chocolate and no one gets hurt". She gets serious about it.

I am still waiting for final word from Barbara Holmes before I post the interview. It is more about me than the last interview I did with her, which was published in Lupi Basil’s remarkable literary magazine, Emotions, maybe a decade ago? That one was more about the poetry. But, you know, sometimes it is hard to determine where the line is.

I will not die the richest, most famous or most powerful man in the world. There will still be people who don’t like me, some with good reason, some for perversely petty or wrong-minded beliefs. I mourn that, for I wish no one ill will. But, if I die synonymous with my art, that will be enough, and more than most ever achieve in this life.

I am in a strange space, somewhere between restless and content. I know the colours here, and the vectors. All is well. It is time to make some minor adjustments before the rocket motor kicks in. Again.

I have come to learn that I attributed the chart of analysis of the tracks for Nemicorn incorrectly to Lupi Basil, it was actually her son (a note to that effect was obscured in the download of the media portions of the mail). I would still very much like to share the chart with you, but will need their permission first (I am a stickler on the etiquette of copyrights).

In the course of the chart, very nicely colour coded, he breaks things down in multiple categories, piece by piece, and assigns grades…I am sad to report it wasn’t all A’s and B’s.

The categories he used were (his explanation) along with the high and low "students":

Voice Tone: (How the poet’s voice plays with the poem on the recording)
A+ on "Texture of Your Tongue", "The Faerie (Strange but Beautiful)", "Pink Jade - Soft as Dawn", "Thetis", "Wild and Defiled, Along the Way", "Once Again, the Nemicorn" and "A Passion, Unrelenting".
D+ on "Falling and Fallen Angels" .

Emphasis: (Annunciation of words and sounds, clarity in voice and sound)
A+ on "Nosferatu’s Quandry", "Texture of Your Tongue", "The Faerie (Strange but Beautiful)", "Thunder Out of Valhalla", "Pink Jade - Soft as Dawn", "Thetis", "Darfur (Jesus Wept)", "Amomancy" and "A Passion, Unrelenting".
C- for "Damascus 3" and "Love Gods (Multivox)".

Rhythm: (The beat and/or stress and/or flow of the poem with its words)
A+ on "Nosferatu’s Quandry", "Right Set of Lips", "Falling and Fallen Angels", "Brisant Revelations", "The Faerie (Strange but Beautiful)", "Thetis", "Wild and Defiled, Along the Way".
D+ for "Love Gods (Multivox)".

Image: (Imagery; the use of sight, sounds, taste, smells and tactile sensations in the poem)
I won’t bore you with this one…15 of the 19 tracks got A+, the lowest grade was a B…for "Thunder Out of Valhalla".

Sound: (Linking words through alliteration, vowels & consonants, or the use of onomatopoeia or rhyme)
A+ for "Right Set of Lips", "Brisant Revelations", "The Faerie (Strange but Beautiful)", "Thetis" and "Amomancy".
C+ for "Falling and Fallen Angels".

Density: (Detailed poetry shows slower pace and less detail quickens pace - the use of either in an easy, fluid manner)
A+ for "The Faerie (Strange but Beautiful)", "Pink Jade - Soft as Dawn", "Thetis", "Wild and Defiled, Along the Way".
B- (for shame!) on "Love Gods (Multivox)".

Poetic Line: (The poem as a whole, whether long or short, analyzed by how the poet uses rhyme or non-rhyme schemes through creativity; this includes "content" quality: This is not based on the subject matter choice or preference, but how you play with it)
12 tracks got A+, 6 got A, one didn’t have lyrics. Hey, I am a poet, after all.

Music Content:
A+ on "The Faerie (Strange but Beautiful)", "Love Gods (Multivox)", "Thetis", "Amomancy", "Once Again, the Nemicorn".
D- on both "Nosferatu’s Quandry" and "Falling and Fallen Angels".

Final average grades:

A+ "The Faerie (Strange but Beautiful)" and "Thetis".
The lowest overall average was B- for "Theocricide".

In the real world, the two tracks I ended up dropping were "Amomancy" and "Brigit".

I can live with those grades. And I am grateful to Lupi’s son for the energy and time he took to involve himself in this project…I’m sending him a free copy of the CD.