Mehitobel Wilson: writer, reader, chronic curmudgeon.

Tomboy bombshell cowgirl; lover of funk, attracted to roadsides.

Besotted with spots.

Friend to sleaze.

Admirer of filthy films, fleshy steaks, Hong Kong rap, new felt and pocket-knocking 8-balls; prefers 10 gallons of hat and 4 fingers of Jack.

Procrastination here breeds urgency there. Urgency begets sharper fiction. The dream: hone it to a splinter, and sink it deep.

So I'm here.

Look, Nothing's Changed

Back from vacation. I can now officially announce that I HAVE NO NEWS TODAY. I just didn't like the last entry being three weeks old.

Anyway, yes. Home again. While I was up roaming Lovecraft country, the DEAD BUT DREAMING antho arrived. It got passed around town here and was curled up and dogeared by the time I got back. I haven't read it yet, myself. Looks nice, though, even curly. My contribution is fine; I got a kick out of writing it and I think it stands up fine, but it was an experiment: could I just write a plain old story? And could I write it in bits, a little each day, instead of slamming it out full-blown in one sitting? Yes, I could do both. I did both. But it wasn't written with the venom that inspires most of my other stuff, so it doesn't feel to me like a story of mine, just like... a story. Personal body-of-work considerations aside, I hope it blends nicely into the book itself. It bloody well better, since the story after it is a Ramsey Campbell piece. Jeez.

While in Lovecraft country, I got to clamber around on rocky shores. This was neat for a number of reasons: one, I am freakish about climbing. I will absentmindedly climb anything. I'm not afraid of heights; I love them, actually. But the physical feeling of climbing, of gripping the rocks, and the animal-brain fun of looking for your next foothold, is great. Reason two: I got to pretend that I was hauling my amphibious body up Innsmouth way. Gill Gal! Reason 3: somewhere in that water is a Nazi U-Boat. Came all the way into the Sound (there's something about this in the most recent Maxim, too) and got nailed with depth charges, and it's down there still. Nazi invasion, right there.

There were other adventures, too, but those tales and details are reserved for fiction flavor.

We all went to the Whitney to see the Biennial show; my friends' friends had an exhibit up. The artists, Forcefield, installed the piece that really got me the most, and would have even without the emotional connections that my viewing companions had to the installation. The piece, whose name I can say but probably not spell, had me standing still in a dark room full of monsters and creatures. There were creatures reminiscent of those in Star Trek, Invisible Man (original), Dr. Who, and others. There were throbbing blobs, small Kachina-like guys, and crocheted men. At times they conversed. Some moved a little bit. Some had blinky lights here and there. Some may have moved, but the "motion" may have been a trick of the eyes, as happens when you stare at an anthropomorphic shape for long enough.

My companions really loved it. But I, fixated as I am on the investigation of spectator vs. object, and fascinated as I am by monsters, was just blown right the holy fuck away. The positioning of the critters forced the viewer to stand encircled, in the darkness, by them; it was as if they were staring at *us.* It was unnerving to stare back, to inspect them. The nature of "monsters" and the production of fear was very much on my mind as well. I'm not ashamed to say that I was scared to enter the installation at first. Not funny, squealy-girl scared (shit, who am I? you know better than that) but that high-adrenaline fear you get when you psych yourself out at home, alone, in the dark. Where you, a full-grown person with a good head on your shoulders, just KNOW that there IS a glutinous swampy zombie under your bed, just this once, and it's going to get you and it's going to be GROSS and it's going to HURT. And you're embarrassed because you know you're being stupid, you KNOW it, but... what if you aren't, Horatio?

That's the fear I felt. I've never felt it in public before, and since I'm shy, that was no good. But the installation was fantastic, and spurred many mental churnings specific to me - and I'm still thinking about it. Two weeks later, I'm still considering things, the way I felt, and why, and why I think of those things in the first place, and so forth. THAT'S art.

Y'know, if I were an End Times fanatic, I'd be losing my shit right about now. While researching Rapture stuff a year or so ago, I came across a website that held my attention for a little too long; I was fascinated at the time by their assertions that the Antichrist was rarin' to go, and by the prophecies. (Not because I bought them, but because so much thought and manipulation had gone into them.) I remembered all of this now that world attention is turned to the Middle East again; now that the word "evil" is associated with bin Laden, etc. Can't find the site, of course, and wouldn't trust it if I did find it - the prophecies might have been edited since I first saw them. Anyway, between the widely held End Times-fanatic belief that the Antichrist will come from the Middle East (cradle of civilization) and that there will be blood in the manger (Bethlehem standoff! did those guys read these sites, or what?) - and the Catholic scandal that's brought Cardinals down while priests fall like flies at the hands of alleged victims, and by their own hands... mix that stuff together, and even common natural occurrences (earthquakes, floods, Amtrak derailings) seem ominous. If I were religious and paranoid, I'd be dreading my hair. (Easier to get raptured up that way, 'cause God can get a better grip on your noggin.)

I really have got to move to a city that has a good library, or a giant university, or at least a school whose library participates in a good ILL program. I get obsessive about too many subjects and just can not afford the money or the shelf space to accommodate every frenzied research-whim. Worse, I often can't afford the books I need for the research, and eventually the obsession passes - and that's bad, because if I'd gotten hold of the books right away, there could be stories.

It's Spring. This means that people with whom I've lost touch are coming out of the woodwork with hellos. Happens every year, but this year, it's become a daily thing. I'm hearing from long-losts every single day. This is nuts. Really neat at times; nuts the rest of the time.

AND FUCKIN' A, damn if ANOTHER one didn't just pop into my inbox. Tigger! Haven't talked to him, laid eyes on him, since 1994. Holy crap, this is just crazy. Neat, but crazy. WHO ELSE?

I don't come out of the woodwork. I bury myself in it. I try to resemble woodwork and flatten my back against the wall. I am wainscoting. I am paneling. I am Wallflower.

Seems I ought to go reply to these distant-past pallies. Offward I go.


posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 4:20 PM