Digging Your Way Out of Hell?

 I rewrote "Psychotic Ape" again. It is down to 9 pages and 2820 words. That and a nap took up most of my day up to the evening.

I talked to Joel C. He keeps me wanting to write, having been my editor in prison.

For some humor: 

I also spoke briefly to CC. She may be coming over. Of course, she has some crisis.

Something learned today:

Another rejection came today:

Thank you for sending us "No Ordinary Word". We appreciate the chance to consider it. Unfortunately, the piece is not right for us at this moment.

Thanks again and best of luck with your work.

Sincerely,

The Editors

carte blanche

I read a couple of pieces from ARTEIDOLIA.

While Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita at Theater 86 promotes a New York City theater, and I doubt whoever does read my posts might attend, I found this bit a very interesting take on Bulgakov's writing:

We believe that Bulgkaov resisted this oppressive world by creating a joyful chaos, magic and poking fun at everything deemed sacred by the masses. It is through this lens that we have rehearsed and explored his story. While there may be numerous interpretations of a novel held dear by so many, we hope to convey our message together with you. This book holds a special place in hearts of many around the world, and it is thanks to Bulgakov’s courage that our paths are passing tonight. We appreciate your support for independent theater and hope you enjoy the show.

I am one of those who fell in love with the novel.

 I could not resist the title for this one, even though I have never read much of Rimbaud: A Counterfactual Rimbaud. This is a review of Dominique Noguez's The Three Rimbauds (translated by Seth Whidden; Seagull Books). Sounds like fun, maybe even if you know nothing of Rimbaud:

Even with the extended literary life Noguez has given his Rimbaud, the central problem of Rimbaud’s life – the continuity, if any, between the early poetry and the later career – remains. It’s just that now it’s played out on a different field and with a new body of “evidence.” Instead of consisting of an effort to reconcile the rebel poet with the petit-bourgeois trader, the game involves trying to reconcile the rebel poet with the author of the post-conversion The Black Gospel. Noguez sets the game up, and plays it well. The Three Rimbauds contains in-depth literary analyses that ultimately reveal a serious point underneath the parodies, pastiches, and in-jokes. Noguez suggests that the real Rimbaud – the historical person, the concrete existent around whom an elaborate and enduring mythical structure coalesced – lived his apparently contradictory life on the basis of an underlying and consistent existential anxiety – an “insomnia,” as Noguez calls it, borrowing the term from a fictitious account of a visit to Rimbaud in December 1936, near the end of the poet’s life. Noguez finds hints of this “irreparably tormented man” in A Season in Hell, which he reads closely, and argues that “what in 1873 is condensed in the few pages of a single text is then developed, orchestrated, from one major text to another.” One could argue that for the (real) Rimbaud who died in 1891, that same torment played itself out in the wanderings and undertakings of his post-literary life.

A new website I found that might be of use to writers: Mythopedia 

CC just called. It is very foggy out, and she banged up the car she was driving. Reunion tomorrow.

Paris Review released two interviews. I think I will save them for tomorrow. I want to make a run-down to the convenience store for supplies. Then bed.

I have had The Three-Body Problem on while finishing this post. I continue thinking it is brilliant.

sch