I have a lot to say on kindness, capitalism, Donald Trump, and the true new order that needs to emerge if humanity is to survive.
Unfortunately, it’s a Wednesday and there’s book club.
Not my book club. A book being used as a club.
I have a lot to say on Jonathan Franzen.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 1567 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
Comics: Gen 13 35-36, Gen 13: Magical Dream Queen Roxy 2-3
Music: Factory Showroom, They Might Be GiantsI gave it to my wife because while a massage is nice, I don’t really necessarily need them. I prefer a lighter massage, and if I’m really being honest, I’d rather it be sensual, rather than clinical (not that I’m asking a RMT to do such things – I mean from my significant other).
But, I guess they’re good for you?
Personally, I could do with some muscle relaxers.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 308 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
Comics: Gen 13/Monkeyman & O'Brien 2, Gen 13 v2 33-34, Gen 13: Magical Dream Queen Roxy 1
Music: Facelift, Alice In ChainsI know it’s pop or whatever, but I feel Cameron Whitcomb’s Options in my gut. I never think of myself as an alcoholic, though my sister-in-law loves to imply it, though her husband actually drinks harder liquor than I do, more often.
He’s prone to get a right buzz on; I just like a couple of beers at the pool or a glass of wine with dinner.
And that, only two to three times a week, if I’m lucky.
Of course, there’s more of that when we’re on vacation, but fuck, you’re on vacation.
If you can’t let your hair down a little on vacation, what kind of vacation is it?
Target: 1500 words
Written: 2139 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
Comics: Gen 12 5, Gen 13 v2 31-32, Gen 13 Bootleg 20
Music: Face Dances, The WhoIf all of my kindness goes towards my cats and dogs?
I mean, that’s kindness, right?
Even if I’m an absolute misanthrope to everyone else?
Is that the way it works?
Target: 1500 words
Written: 2015 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
Comics: Gen 12 4, Gen 13 v2 30, Gen 13 Bootleg 19, Gen 13/Monkeyman & O'Brien 1
Music: Facelift, Alice In ChainsThey’re both off at college now and we no longer have our weekly dinners. I know we weren’t as tight as we used to be when they were younger, but the young one has a superb connection with her aunt, and the elder was more like me.
Quiet, enjoyed music and books, into weird shit, but cool with it.
I’m not sure what happened.
We don’t even talk when we do see each other.
I miss them, an awful lot, but it’s not really about me. It’s about them living their lives.
Few people have meant so much to me in my days, and it’s a shame we have to drift apart.
Still, their lives await. All I ever want for anyone is for them to be happy, so go be happy.
I’ll be here if you feel like shooting the shit.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 2570 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
Comics: Gen 13 v2 27, Gen 13/Generation X: Harvest Of Evil 1, Gen 13 Bootleg 17, Gen 12 2
Music: Fables Of The Reconstruction, R.E.M.I’m thinking about kindness today. It’s because I’m writing a book where it’s a large part of it, and while I need kindness to play a large role in my life and my person, I find I’m having difficulty tapping into it.
I think the past two-plus years of wallowing and anger have dulled my sense of compassion. I am an empathic being; I feel everything intensely. I am highly affected by other people’s moods.
But that makes me want to withdraw, not connect.
And what I need is connect.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 324 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
Comics: Gen 13 v2 26, Gen 13 Bootleg 16, Gen 12 1, Gen 13 Bootleg Annual 1
Music: February 26, 1994, Milan, Nirvana (the last of the bootlegs, I swear. I think. For now, anyway.)So. Goddamned tired.
How can this be a real world?
In what version of a divine being’s creation is this shit normal?
What kind of sick fuck would create something like this?
Only the cruel or the incompetent could build something so inherently awful.
Fuck you, God.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 2479 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
Comics: Gen 13 v2 25, Gen 13 Bootleg 14-15, Gen 13 Interactive Plus 3
Music: October 30, 1992, Buenos Aires, NirvanaHow the fuck did that happen?
Portugal still has me so far behind, plus, you know, life.
Life is a real character, ain’t it?
Target: 1500 words
Written: 496 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: The Twenty-Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen
Comics: Gen 13 Interactive Plus 1-2, Gen 13 v2 24, Gen 13 Bootleg 13
Music: February 19, 1992, Tokyo, NirvanaYesterday’s post was identifying where I’d examined previously. I cover lots of little things in my smaller works, but the big themes of my life, I try to save for the canon.
The Mungk was trauma/fatalism.
The Conflagration Of Boor And Aghast is about tribalism and the pointlessness of dualism with substance, subtlety and consequence.
Father Lightning? It’s not going to be a tale of woe; or rather, it is, but there is, as there should be in all great novels of fear, a sense of humanity.
Of kindness.
Compassion.
I spent nearly a year wallowing over the hopelessness of it all with The Mungk. I spent over a year mired in the politics of mutual hate with Boor & Aghast.
It’s time for some higher focus.
It’s time to focus on a little kindness. A little compassion.
it’s time to make the world a little better place. Rather than navelgazing and moaning into the void, or raging against everyone who doesn’t agree with my side in mutually assured destruction, I’m going to learn how to be nice.
It may take more effort than I’ve got.
Target: 1500 words
Written: 2506 words, novel: Father Lightning
Read: A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft
Comics: Gen 13 v2 22-23, Gen 13 Bootleg 11-12
Music: February 1, 1992, Melbourne, Nirvana