OK! Excellent follow-up to Ep. 1! Kate, you're totally killing it here with this form of POV from the dark side via Erin. Crafting strong descriptive prose which you do for Erin as a victim--and she IS a victim, despite the "consent" letter she bears--of a brutal, violent, degrading, and dehumanizing ordeal of rape, beating, psychological and physical torture isn't easy. A far more difficult task is crafting the prose so precisely (in a "strategic" sense, so to speak), to have the images hit the reader right in the gut--to see the broken, devastated, ravaged, soiled body of Erin--this brilliant woman--once beautiful and successful--literally used as a toilet by a gang of antediluvian reptiles with her husband's "blessing." She has experienced Evil--she just cannot go any lower than a human being can go. Kate, you write incredibly vivid erotica, which is erotica as it's meant to be written. Some of it's romantic, some quasi-satirical/satirical as I've read your stories. But I see the beautiful women you write about, and your word choice describes the experiences of sexual ecstasy, adventure, and transgressive depravity with titillating impact--it's very hot, and very powerful. With your descriptive prose in Episodes 1 and 2, you've proven your talent functions just as well in the opposite direction--that there is a dark side--a dangerous and destructive side, to what appears at first glance to be something appealing and enjoyable: Brian's being too-good-to-be-true, for instance--a charismatic, fast-talker who wormed his way into Erin's heart--she bought his lies and deceit--his nature as a degenerate gambler and complete narcissist. Max is fascinating. I'm glad that she has someone from her past that she loves, who's actually been devoted to her all these years--but this being a noir universe--one of the conventions of this shady world is that nothing is as it seems, and the most intimate, passionate lover often turns out to be a stone-cold killer or ruthless mercenary--can't help but have a suspicion in the back of my head about Max here--what's he really about? She's a pile of broken pieces, and he's offering her a job? He's lived a kind of monastic existence all this time, but he's this big-time CEO? Something's not right. Glad Brian's dead, though I was hoping she would have gotten her hands on him herself and given her a "Pulp Fiction" style "pair of pliers and a blow torch" treatment--and much, much more--probably a long, drawn out affair involving corrosive chemicals, culminating with insertion into a wood-chipper, feet-first, but that's me. I love the self-insertion of Sissitrix as a principal! I 've heard and read many craft sources that authors should stay away from "self-insertion." What the hell for? Henry Miller's works are nothing but self-insertion! A writer writing a piece, or an artist drawing or painting is self-inserting because they're creating whatever it is they've dreamed up! So I call bullshit on that self-righteous, myopic claim! I also really dig this futuristic regenerative pod thing you've both come up with (and they're also destructive, since Brian's being destroyed by one!). I've already read through to the 4th episode, so I'll have more to say at the appropriate places, but Sissitrix, the first time I saw your work, I did get a very heavy H.R. Giger vibe from them--it's really cool, and you really do carry off the biomechanical aesthetic in a very brilliant, unsettling way, no offense meant, of course--I mean it totally in the aesthetic sense--the eerie mix of the living with the inanimate--another cognate I detect is the bizarre imagery typical of David Cronenberg's films. Your images in this installment were very arresting. I particularly liked the stark image of Erin in a hospital bed set in the solid black void. Isolated in the uncertain, dreamlike realm between life and death, or even the drugged-up, waking dream of anesthesia--unaware of her surroundings, body between numb and wracked with pain, infected with STDs and God knows what else, uncertain of her fertility, her beauty, her future--uncertain of everything, uncertainty being, in many ways, one of our ultimate fears, in this world where technology is seen as the ultimate solution which allows us access to information about any desired subject in seconds--our must be the most control-obsessed civilization in human history, since we've tricked ourselves into the hubris of absolute certainty about almost everything--but Erin is floating in a black void of total uncertainty--your drawing evokes that--the isolation of uncertainty. The other piece was the cluster of open eyes--this is highly evocative of the scenery which Dali painted for Hitchcock's psychoanalysis-themed thriller "Spellbound," with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. Peck is an amnesiac murder suspect (going by the name "John Brown" incidentally!), under the care of Ingrid Bergman, a Freudian psychiatrist who subjects him to detailed analysis of his dreams and such to find out the real killer, etc. One of Dali's sets is a giant cluster of open eyes--seen by Peck in one of his dreams--the open eye, or the eye itself, replete with symbolism from time immemorial. I have comments on the other two episodes, which I'll get to in due course--this is an amazing, ambitious project you've both embarked upon--it's rich, it's original, and wonderfully eclectic and mysterious--highest marks all the way!!!
I adore that link you made to Giger and Cronenberg, the dark erotic in their universe attracts me. I love the lights and shadows, that intense black in the work of HR Giger.
I didn't know Dalí painted for Hitchcock — it is breathtaking. For the eyes, I took a reference picture from Jeanloup Sieff, named Triple Eye. And now, wait for episode 5!
Despite the controversy, I actually SAW the real stuff Dali did for the movie back in 2005, when the Philadelphia Museum of Art did a marquee Dali retrospective (surprised they even did a show of that magnitude, Philly being the cultural backwater/toxic lagoon it is--I hope someday I can escape to NYC! The last big show I saw there was when I was 10 back '86, when they had a world-famous Chagall show--my very first big-time art exhibit--still have the catalog!). Anyway--the background that he did was quite impressive, and it matches what's shown in the film, so who knows? I think people give him a bad rap (and Surrealism as well, probably because they're too dense and shallow to understand what the whole thing's about, or perhaps they do, but are so goddamn afraid to be introspective the jarring imagery and texts freak them out! I remember back when I first read Bataille's "Story of the Eye"--I was still trying to find my way out of the whole lifetime of Catholic guilt/fear thing--and first, it shocked and revolted, but also intrigued, in the sense that Nietzsche intrigues if you've never been exposed to thinking in an unconventional way before--same thing happened to me with him when I was in 7th grade and a teacher mentioned the "God is dead" thing offhand.
So, enjoy the Dali/Hitchcock stuff. Also, thanks for the follow on Medium! Did you read my poem "Night Solitaire?" Pretty dark, introspective piece. My Twitter page is pretty good too, with ex tempore stuff: I'm @JBrownPHLScribe. Be back with words in Episodes 3 & 4 when time permits! Ciao!--John.
It was a lot of fun to create a set of drawings for this new chapter.
The drawings are dark and mysterious speaking to the soul of our universe oh noir artworker.
OK! Excellent follow-up to Ep. 1! Kate, you're totally killing it here with this form of POV from the dark side via Erin. Crafting strong descriptive prose which you do for Erin as a victim--and she IS a victim, despite the "consent" letter she bears--of a brutal, violent, degrading, and dehumanizing ordeal of rape, beating, psychological and physical torture isn't easy. A far more difficult task is crafting the prose so precisely (in a "strategic" sense, so to speak), to have the images hit the reader right in the gut--to see the broken, devastated, ravaged, soiled body of Erin--this brilliant woman--once beautiful and successful--literally used as a toilet by a gang of antediluvian reptiles with her husband's "blessing." She has experienced Evil--she just cannot go any lower than a human being can go. Kate, you write incredibly vivid erotica, which is erotica as it's meant to be written. Some of it's romantic, some quasi-satirical/satirical as I've read your stories. But I see the beautiful women you write about, and your word choice describes the experiences of sexual ecstasy, adventure, and transgressive depravity with titillating impact--it's very hot, and very powerful. With your descriptive prose in Episodes 1 and 2, you've proven your talent functions just as well in the opposite direction--that there is a dark side--a dangerous and destructive side, to what appears at first glance to be something appealing and enjoyable: Brian's being too-good-to-be-true, for instance--a charismatic, fast-talker who wormed his way into Erin's heart--she bought his lies and deceit--his nature as a degenerate gambler and complete narcissist. Max is fascinating. I'm glad that she has someone from her past that she loves, who's actually been devoted to her all these years--but this being a noir universe--one of the conventions of this shady world is that nothing is as it seems, and the most intimate, passionate lover often turns out to be a stone-cold killer or ruthless mercenary--can't help but have a suspicion in the back of my head about Max here--what's he really about? She's a pile of broken pieces, and he's offering her a job? He's lived a kind of monastic existence all this time, but he's this big-time CEO? Something's not right. Glad Brian's dead, though I was hoping she would have gotten her hands on him herself and given her a "Pulp Fiction" style "pair of pliers and a blow torch" treatment--and much, much more--probably a long, drawn out affair involving corrosive chemicals, culminating with insertion into a wood-chipper, feet-first, but that's me. I love the self-insertion of Sissitrix as a principal! I 've heard and read many craft sources that authors should stay away from "self-insertion." What the hell for? Henry Miller's works are nothing but self-insertion! A writer writing a piece, or an artist drawing or painting is self-inserting because they're creating whatever it is they've dreamed up! So I call bullshit on that self-righteous, myopic claim! I also really dig this futuristic regenerative pod thing you've both come up with (and they're also destructive, since Brian's being destroyed by one!). I've already read through to the 4th episode, so I'll have more to say at the appropriate places, but Sissitrix, the first time I saw your work, I did get a very heavy H.R. Giger vibe from them--it's really cool, and you really do carry off the biomechanical aesthetic in a very brilliant, unsettling way, no offense meant, of course--I mean it totally in the aesthetic sense--the eerie mix of the living with the inanimate--another cognate I detect is the bizarre imagery typical of David Cronenberg's films. Your images in this installment were very arresting. I particularly liked the stark image of Erin in a hospital bed set in the solid black void. Isolated in the uncertain, dreamlike realm between life and death, or even the drugged-up, waking dream of anesthesia--unaware of her surroundings, body between numb and wracked with pain, infected with STDs and God knows what else, uncertain of her fertility, her beauty, her future--uncertain of everything, uncertainty being, in many ways, one of our ultimate fears, in this world where technology is seen as the ultimate solution which allows us access to information about any desired subject in seconds--our must be the most control-obsessed civilization in human history, since we've tricked ourselves into the hubris of absolute certainty about almost everything--but Erin is floating in a black void of total uncertainty--your drawing evokes that--the isolation of uncertainty. The other piece was the cluster of open eyes--this is highly evocative of the scenery which Dali painted for Hitchcock's psychoanalysis-themed thriller "Spellbound," with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. Peck is an amnesiac murder suspect (going by the name "John Brown" incidentally!), under the care of Ingrid Bergman, a Freudian psychiatrist who subjects him to detailed analysis of his dreams and such to find out the real killer, etc. One of Dali's sets is a giant cluster of open eyes--seen by Peck in one of his dreams--the open eye, or the eye itself, replete with symbolism from time immemorial. I have comments on the other two episodes, which I'll get to in due course--this is an amazing, ambitious project you've both embarked upon--it's rich, it's original, and wonderfully eclectic and mysterious--highest marks all the way!!!
I adore that link you made to Giger and Cronenberg, the dark erotic in their universe attracts me. I love the lights and shadows, that intense black in the work of HR Giger.
I didn't know Dalí painted for Hitchcock — it is breathtaking. For the eyes, I took a reference picture from Jeanloup Sieff, named Triple Eye. And now, wait for episode 5!
Hi Sissitirx--Well, allow me to introduce you to the Dali/Hitchcock Collab! Here's a YouTube link to the actual scene from "Spellbound." Very trippy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyPe1Jahyfo
Here's a fascinating piece from USC (a journal article) about the controversy about how much of Dali's surreal vision was retained in the final cut:
https://scalar.usc.edu/works/the-space-between-literature-and-culture-1914-1945/vol14_2018_king
Despite the controversy, I actually SAW the real stuff Dali did for the movie back in 2005, when the Philadelphia Museum of Art did a marquee Dali retrospective (surprised they even did a show of that magnitude, Philly being the cultural backwater/toxic lagoon it is--I hope someday I can escape to NYC! The last big show I saw there was when I was 10 back '86, when they had a world-famous Chagall show--my very first big-time art exhibit--still have the catalog!). Anyway--the background that he did was quite impressive, and it matches what's shown in the film, so who knows? I think people give him a bad rap (and Surrealism as well, probably because they're too dense and shallow to understand what the whole thing's about, or perhaps they do, but are so goddamn afraid to be introspective the jarring imagery and texts freak them out! I remember back when I first read Bataille's "Story of the Eye"--I was still trying to find my way out of the whole lifetime of Catholic guilt/fear thing--and first, it shocked and revolted, but also intrigued, in the sense that Nietzsche intrigues if you've never been exposed to thinking in an unconventional way before--same thing happened to me with him when I was in 7th grade and a teacher mentioned the "God is dead" thing offhand.
So, enjoy the Dali/Hitchcock stuff. Also, thanks for the follow on Medium! Did you read my poem "Night Solitaire?" Pretty dark, introspective piece. My Twitter page is pretty good too, with ex tempore stuff: I'm @JBrownPHLScribe. Be back with words in Episodes 3 & 4 when time permits! Ciao!--John.