Halloween Morning: The Dawn Patrol

 Up at 5:30, forgetting this morning's Matins for the secular world of words.

 I caught with some reading. 

Seven Minutes in Heaven with the Electric Seraphim by Juliet Kahn (Uncanny Magazine) is a short story with a different form than what I usually read; I suspect that it is one that will resonate better with someone younger. It ends with one of those emoticons that meaning nothing to me, but what comes before, with its uploaded consciousnesses and the emotional conflicts of young women and the failure (or hubris?) of solving the mind/body split, makes it a story to think about and to feel. This is what the best science fiction - the best fiction - does. I wish I could do as good a job.

The Evolution of the Vampire Image, from Nosferatu to Sinners by Del Sandeen  (Uncanny Magazine) disappoints on only one count - it does not mention Near Dark. It also makes me regret not seeing Sinners. (Everything I read about Sinners makes me regret not seeing the movie.) 

 Google News turned up Blondie on the ’90s, ‘No Exit’, and how the future looks without Clem Burke (NME). I have been going back to Blondie on YouTube - I parted ways with them after Autoamerican - but having heard some of their newer stuff on WXPN while in Fort Dix, I finally listened to "No Exit". I was lucky to have seen Blondie back in the day, they got booked into the Convention Center. Clem Burke was truly a great drummer. Until reading the interview, I did not know there were only three of the original band doing the touring; with Burke dying, that left only one.

I continue my hunt for magazines to place my short stories. This morning it was F(r)iction. Reading two of the stories they have public, left me with serious doubts. Interstellar Space by Scott O'Connor and From the Roof of The Henry Vaughn Hotel by Peter H.Z. Hsu are two beautiful stories. Their style is not mine. I am too plain of a Midwesterner. Nor do I think "Coming Home" goes as deep into the heart as either of these stories. What that portends for my story - or for myself - is unknown; my brain has not processed enough to come up with a rationalization for continuing my own writing. Right now, will be submitting to this magazine.

I went over to The Sun, a publication I did not know of until prison, for the same purpose. Reading White Folks by John Holman, I think "Agnes" could work here but for its one Anglo-Saxon curse word. I could send "Coming Home" as a lark; maybe "No Ordinary Word".

That is pretty much going to be it. I think I will do an early lunch at The Downtown Food Stand, pay rent, then group. Maybe a few things can be done before then. 

sch