Man, Myth and Magic

I originally wrote this post for Triptych, the web comic I created with Devon Devereaux. I liked it a lot and wanted to share it here just in case there are folks who aren't reading the comic. Though, I can't understand why you wouldn't be. Anyway, here's the post:

My first exposure to the occult came in the form of Richard Cavendish’s 24-volume Man, Myth and Magic. I still remember the shock I felt looking through those books for the first time. It was similar to the feeling I had the first time I looked at porn – though I knew it wasn’t technically illicit since my parents had it on a shelf I could easily access. It’s hard for me to imagine why those volumes were in the house. It must have been because of my mother. She had a passing interest in all things spiritual.Tarot decks were common in our house, and we had a Ouija board. So, I suppose that answers that.

I first discovered these books, collections of articles which appeared in Cavendish’s magazine of the same name, when I was six. I can still feel the cold concrete floor beneath me as I looked through the volumes. Every page seemed to bring an electric thrill as image after image flooded into my wee brain. At that age, of course, all I did was look at the pictures. Later I read the damned thing from beginning to end and would regularly re-read articles as I grew older. There were articles on demons, ritual scarification, witchcraft, cannibalism, and so much more. I encountered some 1,000 articles as I looked through those books. And I would only ever look at it in that room, I’d certainly never have taken it into the room where I slept. In those days, I was a true believer. Of everything. I’ve changed since then – nowadays I feel like I don’t believe in anything. I don’t know that I recommend either state.

There’s a feeling I’ve had a few times in my life as I experience a piece of art. I’ve tried to explain it at different times with varying degrees of success. Sometimes as I look at or read a piece of art, I feel something happening in my brain – I feel something inside me reconfiguring itself. Later in life, I began to feel that this was my body preparing itself to download new software. It was a physical manifestation of how art can change one’s perceptions. I’ve felt it looking at the art of Basil Wolverton, reading the Revelation of St. John, watching films like Altered States and Videodrome. And the first time I ever felt it was looking through those strange volumes of Man, Myth and Magic.

I think my parents sold those volumes when they moved from that house where I’d grown up. Even if they didn’t, that’s when I lost track of the books. In the years since then I’ve searched half-heartedly for them. I remember finding a complete set at least a decade ago. The bookstore was asking the ungodly sum of $200 and there was no Triptych.
way I could have afforded that at the time. I don’t even know if I’d want them again at this point. I’m sure that everything I found scary and thrilling and new about them would seem now, nearly 40 years on, creaky and silly. I think I’d rather keep my memories intact. Especially because those books have informed so much of what I have written and what I plan to write. They certainly inform everything I’m doing with

R.I.P. Leslie Neilsen

Also, weekend numbers.

Just this morning I was talking to to my wife about Police Squad and some of the hilarious devices they used in each episode to satirize detective shows at the time. This evening I was saddened to learn that Leslie Neielsen, the star of Police Squad and Airplane! and, of course, Forbidden Planet. Nielsen was one of those lucky actors who got to have a second act to his career. (I know that F. Scott Fitzgerald was mostly wrong when he said that there are no second acts in American lives, but, as far as actors are concerned, he was mostly right.) A handsome dramatic actor as a young man, Nielsen was given the opportunity to reinvent himself when he starred in Airplane! There was no looking back.

I remember seeing Airplane! in the theater, which seems impossible now since I was only ten years old at the time, but that might say something about how I was raised. Regardless, I know I didn't understand everything I was watching, but I knew it was transformative. That movie was the benchmark against which I measured all comedies for a very long time.

I'm going to look on amazon.com now to see about buying Police Squad on DVD. If you haven't seen it before, I suggest you do the same.

And here are the numbers:

Daily word count: 3,266 (1,049 novel, 701 story, 1,516 new project)

Monthly word count: 33,242 (25,225 novel, 5,790 story, 2,227 new project)

Novel word count: 96,726

Over the Edge

I remember watching Over the Edge when I was a kid. Maybe ten or so. There are a handful of movies I saw around that time that I feel, and felt at the time, were transformative. That altered me. The Exorcist, Tommy, Altered States, The Godfather, and, of course, Over the Edge. I was too young to be watching any of these people, truth be told, and there's no way I'll let Oscar watch them when he's that age, but discipline was lax at the Gallardo household, I guess.

The movie is a low budget number about rebellious youth, or youth gone wild, or what happens when adults abdicate there roles as authority figures. One or all of those. I just remember that the images of kids rising up against the adults left an indelible mark on me. The fact that the adults deserved it was even more revelatory.

One thing about the movie, however: I've never talked to anyone else who's seen it. Even the biggest film buffs I know seems to be unaware of it. For a while I thought I'd made it up, imagined it completely. So imagine my delight when I found a story on the indispensable BoingBoing.net linking to an oral history of the films production. The article itself resides at Viceland.com. It's fairly lengthy and I haven't made it through the entire piece yet, but what I've read leaves me wanting more.

It also leaves me wanting to watch the movie again. What are the odds it's available on DVD?

Here's the trailer for your viewing enjoyment:

A love song about Meridian, ID

James Joyce couldn't get away from Dublin fast enough and then he spent his whole life writing about it. Something similar attracts me to my old home town. I left a couple of months after graduating high school and it took nearly twenty years to return. In the intervening years, Meridian and Idaho in general sort of haunted me. I felt like a child who wanted to reject his parents but who realizes that everything he is today is because of them. Finally returning didn't help assuage this aching sense of nostalgia I felt because the town had changed so much. Where there had once been a sleepy farm town, I now found a cookie-cutter version of the mall-filled cities you find everywhere in this country. Driving through the city was like looking at a series of double exposures where I couldn't help but see what used to be superimposed on what is. Now that I know it's gone forever, I feel even more attracted to the Meridian I grew up in.

I even have a title in mind

Between 1998 and 2003, my family and I went through what I guess could be called a tragedy. I don't really talk about this. Even those folks who are closest to me probably don't know the whole story. One thing I've never thought about is exploiting the story professionally. So, I was very surprised when I found myself wondering yesterday what the story would look like as a comics memoir.

I tried to ignore it for a while, but even today, I find myself thinking about the structure of the tale. And I've been thinking about it in those terms: a tale. What would need to be revealed first, second, so on.

In comics, memoirs like these are often the purview of the writer/artist. I'm thinking about Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and Epilepsy by David B. I am not an artist of course, but that would be an interesting problem, wouldn't it? Attracting an artist to the project who would fit visually. What exactly would be in the project that they would find attractive?

I think as far as publishing goes, that the project would be sort of a no-brainer. It seems like exactly the kind of projects that large publishers are looking for. Thinking about it in these terms makes me feel a little slimy. How many times have I looked at an ad for a new memoir and said, sarcastically, "Boy, I wish I'd experienced some horrible tragedy so that I could get a book deal." Now that I'm thinking about it seriously, I feel like a hypocrite. Of course, I can't help but think about the commercial potential of any project I might consider. It's second nature to me by now.

So, I suppose, I have to consider why it is I want to work on this project. It is not simply to have a commercial project (believe it or not, it's never only that). I've found myself thinking about this time in my life more and more lately. It almost feels like something that needs to be exorcised. But that's not right either. It's an episode that has certain power over me, mostly because I haven't examined it closely. Perhaps, once I have looked closely at it from all sides, it will no longer have a hold over me.

And of course, there are more feelings in play than just mine. My brothers, my sister, at least one ex-girlfriend, inlaws. I'd need to speak with all of them about this, right? They were all involved and will be affected if a book about this period comes out. How does one handle that?

There's a lot here I need to think about. And I few people with whom I should talk. More later, I promise.

Heart-shaped scar

I'm not sure why, but I'm thinking a lot about high school lately. Maybe it's because my 20th reunion is coming up this Summer. Maybe it's something to do with the book proposal on which I'm currently work, though that book has absolutely nothing to do with high school.

Anyway, today I was sitting in a coffee shop, drinking a tea and reading a book (From the Teeth of Angels by Jonathan Carroll, which is fantastic, by the way) when this memory came to me and wouldn't go away. Not even a memory, really. I just started thinking about this girl with whom I went to high school. Her name was Angie and she was nice and pretty (an unusual combination in those days, it seemed). We were never friends or hung out or anything, but we had classes together and I remember that she was always pleasant to be around.

What I found myself thinking about this afternoon was the fact that as a baby Angie had had open-heart surgery to correct some defect or another. When she wore certain shirts, you could see the very top of her surgery scar peeking out from the collar. I wanted so much to see the rest of that scar.